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If we were to imagine this article as having been written by a lone author, it could be said with confidence that she had never heard the dictum "never trust an encyclopedia" (or its 21st century equivalent "never trust any solitary source"). The whole thing takes at face value the premise that Britannica, academia, broadsheet journalism etc. are more or less unimpeachably reliable, and that it is of great significance that Wikipedia fails to emulate them. For such an elaborately-developed article, I am very surprised to see no contestation of this notion, when that is the first thing prominent Wikipedia supporters address when faced with questions about its reliability in the press. See Jimmy Wales' comments here for a canonical example.
The point has been made above that the article reads like a Wikipedian's rebuttal of selectively chosen criticisms, and is biased in favour of the site as a consequence. That the article would begin this enterprise by accepting the anachronistic assumptions of Wikipedia critics makes for a very odd read indeed. Skomorokh 05:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm curious about History2007's idea that Wikipedia's articles on introductory topics are less accurate than Wikipedia's articles on advanced topics. Here are the 42 articles used in the Nature study:
If anyone who hasn't read the results wants to make a call on which are the, let's say, 5–8 most introductory articles and the same number of most advanced articles, I can compare Wikipedia's error rates in the two article sets. Adrian J. Hunter( talk• contribs) 14:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
@History2007: You seem to be such a convinced fan of Wiki-Watch. I only want to inform you that this self decribed project for transparency and reliability of Wikipedia, who's founder also runs a PR company, was found to be connected to a small army of sock-puppets that put massive POV in articles related to pharmaceutical and evangelical topics. Meanwhile, this story even made it into major national news-outlets in Germany ( Hier prüft der Bürger das Insulin noch persönlich: Die dubiosen Verstrickungen von Wiki-Watch, faz.net vom 1. Juli 2011) (sorry, only german). -- MTYM ( talk) 01:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
In the section above called "Article takes at face value antiquated conception of reliability", user:Skomorokh made a number of comments which in the end received no final answer on this talk page. I have been thinking about that, and although at first reading that may seem like a radical statement, once one thinks about it there is substance there that needs attention.
So let me ask a couple of obvious questions here, to go back to that issue:
Clearly the link to Reliability is not adequate at all. So what does reliability mean here? The article mentions "Comparative studies" and "Expert opinion" as two approaches. Are they the only two methods of assessing reliability? If so that should be stated. But then what about the rest of the article, where Mr X who is alive disputes the assertion of his own death? That is neither expert opinion, nor a comparison to Britannica. And what about the term "bias" discussed in the article. Is tone a component of reliability? What about "internal consistency"? What if the Wikipage World's busiest airports by passenger traffic has different number of passengers for some airports than the pages about the airports (check it, you may be amused)? In any case, as a reader I would like to see a better definition of reliability.
I ask that because I find Wikisource such a valuable resource. If Wikisource has the actual text of what Isaac Newton wrote, and I can just look it up, and compare to the article, then I personally do not care what Britannica says. I will believe Wikisource before Britannica. I think what Skomorokh implied was: Britannica is losing its relevance really fast, and I think Wikisource validates that sentiment in man cases.
Moreover, a comparison of Wikipedia with other encyclopedias is like comparing the movies made in the United states to those made in Luxembourg. There is so much more in Wikipedia that it is impossible to get a broad assessment by comparing its content to encyclopedias which have no equivalent articles. So that definition of reliability needs further attention.
And regarding Skomorokh's comment about the reliability of venerable publications such as the New York Times and The Washington Post , I think we should remember the awards given to Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, etc. and United States journalism scandals. Given the number of articles in Wikipedia compared to the general newspapers, are the number of Wiki-scandals not low? So that comment may also have substance and the definition of reliability needs to address the ratio of articles to the false assertions.
Anyway, I think this article needs help for the definition of reliability it uses is unclear, and as Skomorokh said probably outdated. Comments will be appreciated. History2007 ( talk) 20:56, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually the lede should be driven by the content, not wag the content. So I think a decision needs to be made about the term Wikipedia (with Wikisource or with commons) then the lede reflects that. E.g. as an extreme case suppose commons has a picture of Newton, calling him Einstein and an article uses that - is that reliable? Or a picture of London, calling it Paris, etc. or a diagram for a molecule with the wrong attribution. So that decision comes firs, content gets affected then lede summarizes it. History2007 ( talk) 13:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
On 1 July 2011, you (History2007) wrote
What is Wikipedia? Does it include Wikisource? ... I ask that because I find Wikisource such a valuable resource. If Wikisource has the actual text of what Isaac Newton wrote, and I can just look it up, and compare to the article, then I personally do not care what Britannica says.
To begin with, I'll just discuss the issue of whether Wikipedia includes Wikisource. Looking at how Wikisource defines its relationship with Wikipedia( [3][] [4]), I see nothing that suggests Wikisource should be considered part of Wikipedia. What reliable sources do you have to say that Wikipedia might include Wikisource? I did some Google searching and didn't find anything, but perhaps you have something. -- JTSchreiber ( talk) 05:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
On 1 July 2011, you (History2007) wrote
What is Wikipedia? ... Does it include WikiCommons?
On 9 July 2011, you wrote
E.g. as an extreme case suppose commons has a picture of Newton, calling him Einstein and an article uses that - is that reliable? Or a picture of London, calling it Paris, etc. or a diagram for a molecule with the wrong attribution.
As with WikiSource, I'll start by discussing the issue of whether Wikipedia includes WikiCommons. Looking at the WikiCommons main page ( [5]), it doesn't define WikiCommons as being part of Wikipedia. Do you have reliable sources to say that Wikipedia might include WikiCommons? Without such a source, the article cannot state that WikiCommons is part of Wikipedia. -- JTSchreiber ( talk) 05:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I added the following:
As I was adding the case site in the capcom case, I came across: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_in_judicial_opinions which is a second United States Court of Federal Claims case. The section I added this to seems overly postive about wikipedia, so I hope my contributions remain as a well sourced addition. Igottheconch ( talk) 05:05, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Any reason this [6] isn't used? William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Omission? The article was critical of Wikipedia in 2007. It chose nine articles semi-randomly: Badlands, Sand Creek, The Chautauqua movement, the Free Soil party, the Niagara movement, the Harper's Ferry raid, the Mexican-American War, William Kidd and Harriet Tubman. These were compared with Encyclopaedia Britannica. The conclusion was that Britannica had a 96% accuracy rate in this study (96.5% excluding unverifiable facts) while Wikipedia had an 80% accuracy rate (88% excluding unverifiable facts). It went on to state that there were unattributed quotes and five cases of plagiarized content. Then complained about the quality of writing. Then summarized saying more research is needed (i.e. send more funding). ( 69.138.58.28 ( talk) 05:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC))
Sounds like you're the biased one, 69.138.58.28 . We shouldn't remove things just because they criticize us. -- 69.246.249.158 ( talk) 01:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
No, you're the biased one, 69.246.249.158, because now you're- wait, that only works once per argument. Darn! On a more serious note, I agree with you. Adding in critical sources that in a sense make Wikipedia less credible will actually make Wikipedia look more credible, as it is often interpreted as a very bold and noble move to criticize yourself in order to make your argument less biased. 98.250.105.170 ( talk) 18:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Was just wondering if Criticism of Wikipedia is being deleted or something? Just odd to see so much repeated text. We have things pasted over here like this huge copy and past the majority of this is about "criticism" not "reliability". Whats going on here? Moxy ( talk) 04:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Academic circles have not been exclusively dismissive of Wikipedia as a reference. Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was a 2002 paper called "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light", and many enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. However, these links are offered as background sources for the reader, not as sources used by the writer, and the "enhanced perspectives" are not intended to serve as reference material themselves.
[...]
Some academic journals do refer to Wikipedia articles, but are not elevating it to the same level as traditional references. For instance, Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in the journal Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light", and dozens of enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. The publisher of Science states that these enhanced perspectives "include hypernotes – which link directly to websites of other relevant information available online – beyond the standard bibliographic references".
Once all the merging is done, someone needs to go through the whole article again and clean up things like this. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, better to have redundant information than less information! 98.250.105.170 ( talk) 18:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Not only is it ironic that the leading authority of wikipedia quality standards is wikipedia itself, but also that the top of the pages hints at the fact that the said article might be unreliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conrthomas ( talk • contribs) 03:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
It can not be stated that the entire wikipedia is either reliable or it's not. The reliability among the articles varies. As a consequence, one could consider this article as reliable while he's not sure of other articles. This article also shows which self-image wikipedia wants to convey. Deepfloe ( talk) 15:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Someone just pointed out this study on Jimbo's talk page, it seems highly relevant to this page. The abstract states that Wikipedia stacks up well against the EB's Psychiatry coverage in a couple key areas. Mark Arsten ( talk) 15:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Currently, assessing the reliability of a given wikipedia article is difficult.
Problems: 1.Some heuristic methods are intuitively developed by people to make this assessment (length of article, number/quality of references, etc..). However, this heuristic is not made by most people, who often remain confused on this matter. This erodes the overall credibility of the encyclopedia.
2. Articles are sometimes flagged, or put in some categories, (and on the other hand, very few articles are classified as "Featured/good articles). But it must be recognized that this organization is very rudimentary. More efficient tools are needed and possible.
Proposals:
1. build a quantitative index of assessment of the probable "reliability" of an article. This index includes: length of article, number/quality of references, people's judgment about the reliability, etc..
2. Improve visibility of this index: adopt a color code. Instead of a uniformly white article, color each article and/or each paragraph, and/or each sentence with (the "whiter", the more "possibly reliable" the information is). Page ratings are not widely used nor visible.
It will also give incentives to good participation, as their changes will be more visible. Mokotillon ( talk) 09:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Try as I might, I have no idea what this sentence means: "However, omissions sometimes remained an issue, at times due to public relations removal of adverse product information and a considerable concern for fields such as medicine," specifically, public relations removal of adverse product information. Could anyone make that a little clearer?
You might also consider revising the entire tone of the article, which reads like a marketing piece. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.37.171.204 ( talk) 20:58, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Now that the Rafaeli quote is gone based on the discussion above, I looked at that section again. So I asked myself, "how does one edit that section so people do not laugh when they read it?" The problem I see is that it is basically a "quote-based section" which uses quotes within the context of "assessment". However, absolutely no basis is presented for how the said assessments were performed. And no basis is provided for the ability of the people making the assessments to be able to provide reliable assessments. So as a reader, I am surprised such a low reliability section exists within a reliability article. Of course if something has a WP:RS source one can just use that as a justification for its existence in a Wiki-article, but there is no point in making a "RS soup" of RS quotes that are free of logic.
The other problem is that part of what those quotes say is valid. There are specific, and very large, patches in Wikipedia which are very high quality and this type of unfounded "broad assessment" overlooks the high quality present in many parts of Wikipedia and is just risible when applied to many other parts. Most users who think realize this. That section needs other quotes, better logic or is best left out. I do not know how to fix it now without further research and do not have the time to do the research now. But whoever has the time should work on it.
The specific problems with the quotes are:
So the broad assessment section just seems illogical, despite having WP:RS sources. The Ito statement, is however, valid in some cases. As a reader, I would trust Wikipedia articles on London, Vienna, Chicago or Boston far more than I would any of the Fodor's guides. Those pages are certainly subject to the Ito classification because so many people have checked them and would be more reliable than a travel guide written by 2 people. But the other examples above show the failings of that statement.
Of course, logically speaking, the fundamental problem is that via existential quantification it is much easier to find problems in Wikipedia and any statement about "overall assessment" requires universal quantification which is harder to achieve.
Anyway, that section needs help. But I will stop for now. History2007 ( talk) 14:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
But the statement "similar highs and lows of reliability can be expected now as has happened in the past" is pure, absolute guesswork. There is zero, and I mean "absolutely zero" scientific basis for that statement. Do you have a basis for that statement apart from "a personal guess"? History2007 ( talk) 09:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I could put an outdated tag on it and start an Rfc etc. But why bother... The Rfc would be commented on "by Wikiedians" and not the world outside. So the issue is simple: an encyclopedia by Wikipedians for Wikipedians, etc. In the meantime, the world-wide chuckling continues outside ... History2007 ( talk) 11:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it is an issue to list a few pages to the Wikipedia namespace, but a some of these seem to be almost promoting Wikipedia and its reputation. I removed two links that really seemed to be going against the site's neutrality. Wikipedia:Replies to common objections is a bit puzzling to see here too due to its slight lack of relevance and its POVish nature, but I left it. — WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
This section is lacking, there is an obvious female bias on wikipedia, which is in line with the liberal bias. This section needs to be expanded to include this criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.32.222.133 ( talk) 00:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
If we were to imagine this article as having been written by a lone author, it could be said with confidence that she had never heard the dictum "never trust an encyclopedia" (or its 21st century equivalent "never trust any solitary source"). The whole thing takes at face value the premise that Britannica, academia, broadsheet journalism etc. are more or less unimpeachably reliable, and that it is of great significance that Wikipedia fails to emulate them. For such an elaborately-developed article, I am very surprised to see no contestation of this notion, when that is the first thing prominent Wikipedia supporters address when faced with questions about its reliability in the press. See Jimmy Wales' comments here for a canonical example.
The point has been made above that the article reads like a Wikipedian's rebuttal of selectively chosen criticisms, and is biased in favour of the site as a consequence. That the article would begin this enterprise by accepting the anachronistic assumptions of Wikipedia critics makes for a very odd read indeed. Skomorokh 05:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm curious about History2007's idea that Wikipedia's articles on introductory topics are less accurate than Wikipedia's articles on advanced topics. Here are the 42 articles used in the Nature study:
If anyone who hasn't read the results wants to make a call on which are the, let's say, 5–8 most introductory articles and the same number of most advanced articles, I can compare Wikipedia's error rates in the two article sets. Adrian J. Hunter( talk• contribs) 14:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
@History2007: You seem to be such a convinced fan of Wiki-Watch. I only want to inform you that this self decribed project for transparency and reliability of Wikipedia, who's founder also runs a PR company, was found to be connected to a small army of sock-puppets that put massive POV in articles related to pharmaceutical and evangelical topics. Meanwhile, this story even made it into major national news-outlets in Germany ( Hier prüft der Bürger das Insulin noch persönlich: Die dubiosen Verstrickungen von Wiki-Watch, faz.net vom 1. Juli 2011) (sorry, only german). -- MTYM ( talk) 01:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
In the section above called "Article takes at face value antiquated conception of reliability", user:Skomorokh made a number of comments which in the end received no final answer on this talk page. I have been thinking about that, and although at first reading that may seem like a radical statement, once one thinks about it there is substance there that needs attention.
So let me ask a couple of obvious questions here, to go back to that issue:
Clearly the link to Reliability is not adequate at all. So what does reliability mean here? The article mentions "Comparative studies" and "Expert opinion" as two approaches. Are they the only two methods of assessing reliability? If so that should be stated. But then what about the rest of the article, where Mr X who is alive disputes the assertion of his own death? That is neither expert opinion, nor a comparison to Britannica. And what about the term "bias" discussed in the article. Is tone a component of reliability? What about "internal consistency"? What if the Wikipage World's busiest airports by passenger traffic has different number of passengers for some airports than the pages about the airports (check it, you may be amused)? In any case, as a reader I would like to see a better definition of reliability.
I ask that because I find Wikisource such a valuable resource. If Wikisource has the actual text of what Isaac Newton wrote, and I can just look it up, and compare to the article, then I personally do not care what Britannica says. I will believe Wikisource before Britannica. I think what Skomorokh implied was: Britannica is losing its relevance really fast, and I think Wikisource validates that sentiment in man cases.
Moreover, a comparison of Wikipedia with other encyclopedias is like comparing the movies made in the United states to those made in Luxembourg. There is so much more in Wikipedia that it is impossible to get a broad assessment by comparing its content to encyclopedias which have no equivalent articles. So that definition of reliability needs further attention.
And regarding Skomorokh's comment about the reliability of venerable publications such as the New York Times and The Washington Post , I think we should remember the awards given to Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, etc. and United States journalism scandals. Given the number of articles in Wikipedia compared to the general newspapers, are the number of Wiki-scandals not low? So that comment may also have substance and the definition of reliability needs to address the ratio of articles to the false assertions.
Anyway, I think this article needs help for the definition of reliability it uses is unclear, and as Skomorokh said probably outdated. Comments will be appreciated. History2007 ( talk) 20:56, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually the lede should be driven by the content, not wag the content. So I think a decision needs to be made about the term Wikipedia (with Wikisource or with commons) then the lede reflects that. E.g. as an extreme case suppose commons has a picture of Newton, calling him Einstein and an article uses that - is that reliable? Or a picture of London, calling it Paris, etc. or a diagram for a molecule with the wrong attribution. So that decision comes firs, content gets affected then lede summarizes it. History2007 ( talk) 13:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
On 1 July 2011, you (History2007) wrote
What is Wikipedia? Does it include Wikisource? ... I ask that because I find Wikisource such a valuable resource. If Wikisource has the actual text of what Isaac Newton wrote, and I can just look it up, and compare to the article, then I personally do not care what Britannica says.
To begin with, I'll just discuss the issue of whether Wikipedia includes Wikisource. Looking at how Wikisource defines its relationship with Wikipedia( [3][] [4]), I see nothing that suggests Wikisource should be considered part of Wikipedia. What reliable sources do you have to say that Wikipedia might include Wikisource? I did some Google searching and didn't find anything, but perhaps you have something. -- JTSchreiber ( talk) 05:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
On 1 July 2011, you (History2007) wrote
What is Wikipedia? ... Does it include WikiCommons?
On 9 July 2011, you wrote
E.g. as an extreme case suppose commons has a picture of Newton, calling him Einstein and an article uses that - is that reliable? Or a picture of London, calling it Paris, etc. or a diagram for a molecule with the wrong attribution.
As with WikiSource, I'll start by discussing the issue of whether Wikipedia includes WikiCommons. Looking at the WikiCommons main page ( [5]), it doesn't define WikiCommons as being part of Wikipedia. Do you have reliable sources to say that Wikipedia might include WikiCommons? Without such a source, the article cannot state that WikiCommons is part of Wikipedia. -- JTSchreiber ( talk) 05:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I added the following:
As I was adding the case site in the capcom case, I came across: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_in_judicial_opinions which is a second United States Court of Federal Claims case. The section I added this to seems overly postive about wikipedia, so I hope my contributions remain as a well sourced addition. Igottheconch ( talk) 05:05, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Any reason this [6] isn't used? William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Omission? The article was critical of Wikipedia in 2007. It chose nine articles semi-randomly: Badlands, Sand Creek, The Chautauqua movement, the Free Soil party, the Niagara movement, the Harper's Ferry raid, the Mexican-American War, William Kidd and Harriet Tubman. These were compared with Encyclopaedia Britannica. The conclusion was that Britannica had a 96% accuracy rate in this study (96.5% excluding unverifiable facts) while Wikipedia had an 80% accuracy rate (88% excluding unverifiable facts). It went on to state that there were unattributed quotes and five cases of plagiarized content. Then complained about the quality of writing. Then summarized saying more research is needed (i.e. send more funding). ( 69.138.58.28 ( talk) 05:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC))
Sounds like you're the biased one, 69.138.58.28 . We shouldn't remove things just because they criticize us. -- 69.246.249.158 ( talk) 01:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
No, you're the biased one, 69.246.249.158, because now you're- wait, that only works once per argument. Darn! On a more serious note, I agree with you. Adding in critical sources that in a sense make Wikipedia less credible will actually make Wikipedia look more credible, as it is often interpreted as a very bold and noble move to criticize yourself in order to make your argument less biased. 98.250.105.170 ( talk) 18:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Was just wondering if Criticism of Wikipedia is being deleted or something? Just odd to see so much repeated text. We have things pasted over here like this huge copy and past the majority of this is about "criticism" not "reliability". Whats going on here? Moxy ( talk) 04:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Academic circles have not been exclusively dismissive of Wikipedia as a reference. Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was a 2002 paper called "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light", and many enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. However, these links are offered as background sources for the reader, not as sources used by the writer, and the "enhanced perspectives" are not intended to serve as reference material themselves.
[...]
Some academic journals do refer to Wikipedia articles, but are not elevating it to the same level as traditional references. For instance, Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in the journal Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light", and dozens of enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. The publisher of Science states that these enhanced perspectives "include hypernotes – which link directly to websites of other relevant information available online – beyond the standard bibliographic references".
Once all the merging is done, someone needs to go through the whole article again and clean up things like this. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, better to have redundant information than less information! 98.250.105.170 ( talk) 18:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Not only is it ironic that the leading authority of wikipedia quality standards is wikipedia itself, but also that the top of the pages hints at the fact that the said article might be unreliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conrthomas ( talk • contribs) 03:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
It can not be stated that the entire wikipedia is either reliable or it's not. The reliability among the articles varies. As a consequence, one could consider this article as reliable while he's not sure of other articles. This article also shows which self-image wikipedia wants to convey. Deepfloe ( talk) 15:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Someone just pointed out this study on Jimbo's talk page, it seems highly relevant to this page. The abstract states that Wikipedia stacks up well against the EB's Psychiatry coverage in a couple key areas. Mark Arsten ( talk) 15:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Currently, assessing the reliability of a given wikipedia article is difficult.
Problems: 1.Some heuristic methods are intuitively developed by people to make this assessment (length of article, number/quality of references, etc..). However, this heuristic is not made by most people, who often remain confused on this matter. This erodes the overall credibility of the encyclopedia.
2. Articles are sometimes flagged, or put in some categories, (and on the other hand, very few articles are classified as "Featured/good articles). But it must be recognized that this organization is very rudimentary. More efficient tools are needed and possible.
Proposals:
1. build a quantitative index of assessment of the probable "reliability" of an article. This index includes: length of article, number/quality of references, people's judgment about the reliability, etc..
2. Improve visibility of this index: adopt a color code. Instead of a uniformly white article, color each article and/or each paragraph, and/or each sentence with (the "whiter", the more "possibly reliable" the information is). Page ratings are not widely used nor visible.
It will also give incentives to good participation, as their changes will be more visible. Mokotillon ( talk) 09:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Try as I might, I have no idea what this sentence means: "However, omissions sometimes remained an issue, at times due to public relations removal of adverse product information and a considerable concern for fields such as medicine," specifically, public relations removal of adverse product information. Could anyone make that a little clearer?
You might also consider revising the entire tone of the article, which reads like a marketing piece. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.37.171.204 ( talk) 20:58, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Now that the Rafaeli quote is gone based on the discussion above, I looked at that section again. So I asked myself, "how does one edit that section so people do not laugh when they read it?" The problem I see is that it is basically a "quote-based section" which uses quotes within the context of "assessment". However, absolutely no basis is presented for how the said assessments were performed. And no basis is provided for the ability of the people making the assessments to be able to provide reliable assessments. So as a reader, I am surprised such a low reliability section exists within a reliability article. Of course if something has a WP:RS source one can just use that as a justification for its existence in a Wiki-article, but there is no point in making a "RS soup" of RS quotes that are free of logic.
The other problem is that part of what those quotes say is valid. There are specific, and very large, patches in Wikipedia which are very high quality and this type of unfounded "broad assessment" overlooks the high quality present in many parts of Wikipedia and is just risible when applied to many other parts. Most users who think realize this. That section needs other quotes, better logic or is best left out. I do not know how to fix it now without further research and do not have the time to do the research now. But whoever has the time should work on it.
The specific problems with the quotes are:
So the broad assessment section just seems illogical, despite having WP:RS sources. The Ito statement, is however, valid in some cases. As a reader, I would trust Wikipedia articles on London, Vienna, Chicago or Boston far more than I would any of the Fodor's guides. Those pages are certainly subject to the Ito classification because so many people have checked them and would be more reliable than a travel guide written by 2 people. But the other examples above show the failings of that statement.
Of course, logically speaking, the fundamental problem is that via existential quantification it is much easier to find problems in Wikipedia and any statement about "overall assessment" requires universal quantification which is harder to achieve.
Anyway, that section needs help. But I will stop for now. History2007 ( talk) 14:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
But the statement "similar highs and lows of reliability can be expected now as has happened in the past" is pure, absolute guesswork. There is zero, and I mean "absolutely zero" scientific basis for that statement. Do you have a basis for that statement apart from "a personal guess"? History2007 ( talk) 09:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I could put an outdated tag on it and start an Rfc etc. But why bother... The Rfc would be commented on "by Wikiedians" and not the world outside. So the issue is simple: an encyclopedia by Wikipedians for Wikipedians, etc. In the meantime, the world-wide chuckling continues outside ... History2007 ( talk) 11:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it is an issue to list a few pages to the Wikipedia namespace, but a some of these seem to be almost promoting Wikipedia and its reputation. I removed two links that really seemed to be going against the site's neutrality. Wikipedia:Replies to common objections is a bit puzzling to see here too due to its slight lack of relevance and its POVish nature, but I left it. — WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
This section is lacking, there is an obvious female bias on wikipedia, which is in line with the liberal bias. This section needs to be expanded to include this criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.32.222.133 ( talk) 00:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)