Wikipedia and truth

Posted by
October 24, 2008

For better or worse, the community-written encyclopedia Wikipedia has become a primary online reference source. Disdaining experts and relying on readers to vet the accuracy of its articles, Wikipedia is very often one of the first entries in a Google search. This is a self-reinforcing feedback situation since highly ranked Google entries are apt to get more links, which in turn creates higher Google rank. The Google ranking algorithm relies heavily on popularity and has little to do with accuracy.Thus a Wikipedia article’s high Google rank does not ensure that the article is accurate.

Although studies have claimed to show that the overall accuracy of Wikipedia is high, there are numerous instances of Wikipedia entries being hacked or containing false data. The corrective mechanism of relying on readers to edit Wikipedia entries does seem to work remarkably well but questions remain about the trustworthiness of any particular article. I have found articles on computing subjects to be pretty good and I frequently reference them. However, in an area like chemistry I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff.

Wikipedia’s methods in effect define truth as being what the majority believes to be so. As history has shown many times, the majority of people often believe things that are not true. Unfortunately, I have lost the source of the following quote but it is apt:

“Belief” is a funny thing. In human psychology, belief is the intersection of logic and emotion. It’s not always clear what irrational or non-rational factors cause us to accept, discard, overweight, underweight and otherwise synthesize the facts before us in a belief. Sometimes we sincerely believe things without facts. Other times we believe things despite facts.

A recent article in Technology Review looks at the question of accuracy in Wikipedia entries. The article has the sub-heading, “Why the online encyclopedia’s epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy”, and it concludes:

So what is Truth? According to Wikipedia’s entry on the subject, “the term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree.” But in practice, Wikipedia’s standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it’s the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.

That standard is simple: something is true if it was published in a newspaper article, a magazine or journal, or a book published by a university press–or if it appeared on Dr. Who.

Caveat lector.

Related posts:

  1. New type of search at Wikipedia
  2. Job opening at Microsoft in Ministry of Truth
  3. Tales about Microsoft from inside
  4. Annoying tech products
  5. Increase the number of possible entries in “My Recent Documents”
General, Useful Web sites

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.

Comments

The problem you point out in this article is not a new one; it’s been around ever since human beings began to speak to one another. The only difference is the application. I see no difference between referencing terrible information sources from books or via the Wikipedia. Reality is the final arbiter of truth and always will be.

What the Wikipedia does is provide a massive horde of people willing to do peer-review. It has many more strengths then it does weaknesses.

Comment by Joseph McEntire on October 24, 2008 @ 4:12 pm

Reality may be the final arbiter of truth but sometimes there is a very long time before reality sinks in. Many people have a rather tenuous acquaintance with reality. Just look at all the “smart” people who got us into this economic mess. There were always voices protesting the notion that housing prices would always go up or that it was OK to make loans to people who could never pay back and then grade the loans as AAA investments. But greed and ideology overcame prudence and the dissenters were ignored.

The Internet is, of course, full of wrong information but Wikipedia has a special problem because it has come to be regarded as a primary source. It has a special responsibility to be accurate. It may have hordes of reviewers but there are many areas that require special knowledge that few, if any, of the reviewers have.

Comment by Vic Laurie on October 24, 2008 @ 5:13 pm

The problem with allowing “reality” to be the final arbiter of truth is that the subject is too broad to analyze; after all, “reality” is a quite different concept for each human being on this planet.What’s real for one person may not even be accessible for another.

Perhaps the real question is not “what is truth”, but “who is truth”, “where is truth”, “who has truth”, and “how do I find truth”–and “is it really convenient to know truth”.

Many people, like Pontius Pilate in the Scriptures, find it expedient to turn their backs on truth if it causes them effort, expense, or compromise. Maybe that’s what happened in the case of those who caused our economic chaos. Perhaps the “reality” of their opulent lifestyles suggested to them that the “truth” of what they were doing to countless others wasn’t convenient and didn’t apply to them.

Comment by Ruth Coleman on October 25, 2008 @ 10:13 am

Why single out Wikipedia out for such arguments? These same arguments could be used against Fox News or the New York Times. The answer is: because the Wikipedia is popular and it works. You may not like that, but even Mr. Laurie’s article agrees about that.

Ruth Coleman’s citing from a book of mythological stories to prove the fluidity of reality is seriously twisted logic. Would then, the subject of “vehicles” be too broad to consider?

Comment by Joseph McEntire on October 25, 2008 @ 12:29 pm

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.