@@stevanmiladinovic4007 Wikipedia is not a valid source *for wikipedia*. Any article at any time may contain vandalism or original research, which is a big no-no.
@@stevanmiladinovic4007 yes, this is a fact, which is why edits must not be sourced directly from wikipedia but rather from an official source. Copying info from wiki article to wiki article is a big no-no unless sources are also copied over which support the conclusions reached. Wikipedia is a great jumping-off point for research though, and can help you get a general idea of what you're doing. It's an encyclopedia, not an all-knowing being. Using it as your sole research point is stupid, but you should use it to help you navigate topics you know nothing about.
I never use Wikipedia for politics unless it's history related (like reading about how the Constitution was written). I use Wikipedia for science technology engineering and math topics 99% of the time. The kind of stuff that you can't really have bias about or things you can't fake. (like you cant fake the fundamental theorem of calculus)
Would not have survived some of my college comp sci classes without wikipedia. Anything outside of mathematics on there (including history) is useless imo
The problem is that, at least in the spanish wikipedia, a huge amount of the articles are just (bad) translations of the english ones, even in some articles wikipedia put a disclaimer saying this article is translated from other article.
@@JR-oc5yf the English Wikipedia is actually FLOODED of many shitty editors that you must to identify a fake news and discern with a cherry-picking reference loot. Spanish Wikipedia can lack of this kind of moderation, but some articles are well-made. German Wikipedia blasts to the rest of the Wikipedia.
Ok, but as you said, there is no real solution to Wikipedia, so I'll just use it with the filter implemented in my brain, as always. I think it's very easy to distinguish "controversial" articles from articles on physics, mathematics, etc., which are 99% based on university articles, etc. Wikipedia is like all other websites, but its advantage is that you can easily check sources, discussions and other language versions of these articles. Therefore, you should be smart enough to verify before pressing those information into your brain. Simple enough I think.
Additionally, I think Wikipedia guys (inventors) are really cool, they actually use free software and they don't put tons of ads and javascript bloat that I would need to block.
@@Anonymous-hk4cj Yes, that's a great argument. I really don't want to start a discussion about politics, but i think that what makes a liberal setting stand ahead of socialisms is infact the ability of choice for the individual (accompanied by a good deal of intelligence in selecting what's good for himself, and hopefully respect for the other)
@@Houshalter I don't know about what small specific webpages you are talking. Specific sites that I'm using are fine and they are doing their own thing well. Maybe I'm just not informed enough, but I agree with you that it would be awesome to have decentralized model of sites with Wikipedia being one of them all and not one above them all.
Well, not that you can trust university articles. Nothing can be trusted, not even your own judgement, maybe especially your own judgement. The best thing to do is to be aware of as many possibilities as possible and experiment with different ideas until you get the results that you want. Being too committed to ideas is a bad idea that always leads either to terrible results or to stagnation. Most problems in the world come from people using ideas as a source of identity, getting too attached to that identity, and then being completely unwilling to change and improve.
This is quite the rapid fire. I use Wikipedia to research established facts. Not news. Wikipedia news is just a aggregate for other sites. Please do a follow-up with examples of established facts that have bias in them. I would be very interested in that.
Mark Levin has brought to light verifiably false information on himself. He has contacted Wikipedia directly and they have refused to make corrections to the false information. He is a conservative news commentator.
@@soundmanbrad That is still very different from things such as how an algorithm works. As you said, he is a news commentator, he is inherently political. Just avoid that part of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is just a source of information like many others. There's no such thing as a trustworthy source in my opinion, you just compare information from multiple sources and make a decision out of that.
They have been calling themselves "the free encyclopedia" for years! They purport themselves to be an unbiased source of information, whereas that couldn't be farther from the truth.
This makes me sad cause I write a lot for Wikipedia :( It is true though, so many sources on rely on msm articles. I always aim to source from books and papers where I can, it's not a hopeless issue. I'm happy though that you demonstrate some knowledgability about how Wikipedia is actually run and its policies; No Original Research is a pain in the ass sometimes but a line has to be drawn as to how to measure notability.
@@Extys Not quite. While it does play a big role in ensuring verifiability, WP:NOR importantly covers WP:SYNTH. It is possible do original research while still being verifiable, by purely taking multiple reliable sources and synthesising them, but it's not allowed. Regardless of how obviously connectable two facts may seem to be. At first glance that might seem unfair - but actually, it's far too much of a leap to let editors apply what they feel is logical, what serves their prejudice, biases, etc. On the matter of notability, articles unchecked for OR is how irrelevant, unnotable, garbage and fancruft gets in. Checkout the Garfield article, and have a look at the paragraphs that entirely rely on connecting up primary sources. Horrid stuff.
@@jacobscrackers98 Who's denying that? I don't know what your position is, but if it's that of Luke's, then I don't understand what your point is. Luke is arguing that Wikipedia overwhelmingly represents the biases and prejudices of MSM, which is a fair argument. He is also arguing, it seems fatalistically, that Wikipedia fails to also represent (ultimately, the biases and prejudices of) authors, academics and, uh... I guess redditors. I don't really accept that. Plenty of books and academic material is used. User-generated-content (reddit, etc) tends to be used as primary source, usually to qualify or cross-reference something another source said. The whole point is, Wikipedia represents the different biases of material you find in a library and elsewhere, which is all a encyclopedia does. Not the single biases of the editors themselves. I recommend reading this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth
> media bad > reddit thread good Seriously, who uses Wikipedia for news and opinions and actually believes im what it says? For me wikipedia has always been a great tool for jumpstarting into a subject, and more like an index of what i should research if i want any sort of deep knowledge on that topic
@@g00zik97 >Media good >Reddit good >State Department good >UN Council on Foreign Relations good >World Economic Forum good >World Health Organization Good >ADL good >SPLC good >Now I’m gonna pretend anyone who doesn’t get information from the sources of the globalist cabal is a 4channer, a dated site that nobody notable uses anymore
All of my teachers throughout high school literally made it a point several times, DO NOT TRUST/USE WIKIPEDIA for referencing information. Since the beginning of high school (ok maybe like yr 2) it was drilled into us all. My first year or high school was 8 years ago- I went to high school in Scotland.It's low key irking me that I'm only just seeing a video like this now...
My teachers went further. They didn't trust sources from Wikipedia. They were bad teachers. I think they misunderstood something. It was fairly early on in public schools discovery of Wikipedia.
Same here but I graduated in 2005. Even in college they'd doc points for Wikipedia because it's not robust self-research. Teaching the kid to do their own research is the point. However recently I've seen people your age and younger insist Wikipedia is the ultimate repository of ALL knowledge and facts. They really think it can't be edited by anyone but official experts and scholars. Tbh even if only "experts" could edit it, it'd still be biased. Then it would be the persons/organizations declaring unfit or only certain people "expert" enough to contribute. If Galileo were alive today he wouldn't have had a chance editing or posting his research on Wiki. Though I am glad some people like us still can see how this centralizing of info is problematic.
I learned this lesson the hard way in 2017, when I rewrote the International Phonetic Alphabet templates. It's *extremely* toxic, and *what* *gets* *in* *isn't* *what's* *true* -- *it's* *what's* *most* *persistent* .
@@5days61 I'm not using the Woke/Leftist meaning of the word. I just mean that the people who edit are largely insufferable asshats without the slightest shrivel of emotional intelligence or integrity; operating solely off of pride, anxiety, and other mental disorders.
Hey Luke, actual examples works be useful. Stuff I look up is usually stuff like critical fracture toughness. Pretty accurate and well summarized last time I checked.
Obama's page vs Trump's page 'nuff said It's not that it is always wrong or inaccurate, but it's full of information that is ripped straight from crappy journalism
Web Wanderer, tldr: English Wikipedia articles on "wrongthink" topics or people look just like ones from The Big Soviet Encyclopedia as they both begin with ideological/pseudoscience/unethical/personal accusations. I’m from Russia, and it’s the most unpleasant thing about the English Wikipedia. I’ve read a number of articles form the BSE so I know what I’m talking about. For example look at "Вульгарная политическая экономия" [vulgar political economics, a term for any other economical theory which dares criticize Marxism] in the BSE and compare it with any modern political/controversial article on wiki, the similarity will be uncanny.
Anything political (avoid all). Any article on an individual. It will either be basically advertising (meaning they paid for it or had it written to support their career or person) or a bunch of highly selective moral judgements on someone's supposed views, or the views they suppose them to have, avoids actually explaining their views ofc. e.g. reducing their views to a label such as 'sexist' without understanding much less explaining them. People are not caricatures. Anything you notice, regardless of the article, that relates to the present day events or tries to shoehorn some present day ideology into something (happens a lot in the history articles, wilful misinterpretation and misrepresentation for ideological goodboy points). Anything regarding the achievements or supposed achievements of women (looking at you in particular Ada Lovelace). Basically: history rewritten or represented for ideological purposes AND presentday political propaganda AND personal or sometimes organisational advertisement.
@@redd_cat The left sticks to what is believable and puts in cumulative bias over time and the right just goes off the rails immediately. This is why "Reliable" sources always have a slight left wing bias. The left has been gradually and steadily shifting the overton window while the right tried way too hard and lost traction immediately.
I STUDY PHYSICS AND I HAVE TO SAY RESEARCHING IN WIKIPEDIA IS SOMETIMES CONVENIENT BECAUSE OF THE TIME YOU DON'T HAVE. I USSUALLY GO FOR MATH AND SCIENCE STUFF AND AS I READ I CAN SAY IT WAS WRITTEN BY PROFFESSIONALS BECAUSE TOPICS LIKE QUANTUM MODELINGS OR INFINTE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE THEOREMS CAN'T BE WRITTEN WITH THAT LEVEL, BY JOURNALISTS. AND LIKE U, I DON'T EVEN TRUST IN MY OWN SHADOW, SO WHEN I'M READING SOMETHING THAT IT'S NOT DEMONSTRATED OR THE DEMOSTRATION IS KINDA WEIRD I JUST GO TO THE CITATIONS. SOME MONTHS AGO I WAS READING A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE STERN-GERLACH EXPERIMENT AND IN THE ARTICLE THERE WAS LIKE A NOTE THAT SAID IT'S NEEDED A REVISION AND A LINK TO A DISCUSSION WHERE A STUDENT WAS TALKING WITH THE AUTHOR OF THAT PAGE IN WIKIPEDIA AND HE WAS CLEARLY A PHYSCIST AND HE EVEN GAVE TO HER SOME LINKS WITH INFORMATION WRITTEN BY FEYMAN ITSELF AND SOME SPRINGER ARTICLE. SO I THINK FOR MATH/SCIENCE TOPICS IT'S OK BUT WE HAVE TO VERYFY THE CITATIONS. BUT AS U SAY FOR SOCIAL TOPICS WE HAVE TO BELIEVE IN NONE.
Depends on the math and science. It is fine for looking up something non-controversial and purely factual like how to find eigenvectors. But if you look up something controversial like "global warming" then you will be lied to.
@@atmbm5261 This isn't the place to discuss that topic, there's plenty of well reasoned arguments online as to why the current establishment consensus on GW is flawed and may not be true. However, you are not going to find those arguments being discussed on Wikipedia in any great detail. In terms of reference counts, you might as well say that the statement "Orange Man Bad" must be scientifically true because there are over 3,000 references from CNN, MSNBC and University Professors on Twitter stating so. And these organisations and people never lie according to Google, so the statement must be true.
@@MrEdrftgyuji Ahh you are one of those GW critics.. Well tell me more. I always hear "Do your own research" or "don't believe the mainstream media". I actually did my research, and there is no reason why the climate change is not human made. The scientific consensus is *huuge*. There are not many subjects where the consensus is so immense. While I agree that those opinions are not discussed in great detail, I'm very grateful that it isn't. Those "opinions" are mostly propaganda or unscientifc arguments which should not have the same platform against a 97% consensus of scientists who conclude that the climate change is real. Trump has nothing to do with this. Global warming is a scientific subject and the orange man is politics. I don't get where you want to go with this argument. Of course a lot of articles are biased. That's the human nature, you have to read articles with healthy scepticism. Though he is an absolute asshole for what he is saying during this crisis.
Back in 2008, the administrators of Wikipedia acted to the effect of saying that I was not allowed to write on my user page about my stand on gender politics.
Me during college years: as an open source encyclopedia, Wikipedia is tops. Professors during my college years: Wikipedia is not a viable source. Me long after college: Wikipedia is biased. College professors long after I left: Wikipedia is valid. Lessons learned: Wikipedia's legitimacy has changed & Professors are still getting it wrong.
Who tf learns FFT from Wikipedia? It's taught in all undergrad science and engineering courses. If I somehow skipped that course, then I'll pick up a textbook, not Wikipedia.
What was meant to be a repository of human knowledge is now a repository of human bias to it's worst degree. That's what happens when curation takes over as a persons prime motive and nothing is left to the people anymore.
You didn't mention that Wikipedia is no longer editable by anyone. Now, you need to be part of a special circle to edit articles. No prizes for guessing who gets accepted into that club.
Correction: changing semi-protected (generally the most visited or controversial) articles require a account that is verified. Less popular pages can still be edited by anyone with an unbanned IP. But, after some research, I can confirm the hierarchy is indeed very rigid and dogmatic. If you make edits an admin doesn't like or agree with, your IP will be quickly banned. The number of editors has severely declined over the past decade due to this authoritarian, increasingly centralized caste system.
I've used Wikipedia for CS research for years, it's not the only resource I use and if something looks dodgy I check the citations. Hasn't hurt me yet.
tl;dr Continue using Wikipedia for sciences and non-controversial subjects, please... Wikipedia is extremely useful for unbiased quantitative topics such as maths, computer science or physics. Tbh all sciences, including psychology even. The best thing is that it links sources, which link more sources and etc. It isn't meant to be (or at least shouldn't be) used for anything remotely controversial where bias and human error can exist. Take calculus for example - it will exhaust concisely give you everything you could ever need to know, and you know that it's probably definitely correct because it gets checked and is easily checked. If any information isn't there, find some line and click on the source link and there's your information you needed. Take history as another example - it's not so easy to prove as it is based on past media, which isn't necessarily based on truth and can't be proven easily. This can provoke controversy, and as a result, information can be contradictory and sources will be biased to what media says and what editors want you to think/see. This is unfortunately something Wikipedia isn't useful for. lol WikiLeaks is the perfect place for that :)
@@tissuepaper9962 The problem with using Wikipedia for current events/history is that the sources in the bibliography will be biased in the same way. May as well just cut out the middleman and go straight for MSM. It will very rarely show anything from the opposing view point, let alone with an actual source.
it's plagued with "reviewers" who will apply their personal view on a subject and will delete whatever addition the don't agree with, not following the objective rules, they get admin levels based on activity and not on a knowledge base, it's a waste of time redact anything anymore you'll get everything deleted, they delete like if they get points for activity
No Luke no, there is one big difference between news media and Wikipedia: most journalists do not feel the need to cite sources, in Wikipedia you have to. And if you use Wikipedia looking at references, aware that it can't be better than the sources, Wikipedia IS amazingly useful. Most often, sources at not good for current topics and politics. But that's not what one usually uses Wikipedia for. Also, fact checking does not work that way.
I think I got the point entirely. If I see that the main source of an entry is a crappy article, I will consider that entry unreliable. I have a way to see where information comes from. I don't think it makes sense to say that "Wikipedia is biased" globally. I think Wikipedia is a website whose pages are written by different people with different biases. Each of these people has to cite some sources, so I can see (even if indirectly) if the specific entry I'm reading is worth considering.
In fact, I do not assume every article is reliable. But instead of stopping using Wikipedia as a matter of principle I might consider contributing to improve articles about things I am actually competent about.
the "point" doesn't seem to be the biases. even scientific papers -- the gospel of our current age, besides they are not even read -- also cannot help but have biases. what's more crucial, from a bunch of dull conspiracy theorists' perspective, is rather the centralization of the information. therefore, more power to one source (in this case, wikipedia) represents two main consequences basically: 1) the burial of other little independent sources that less people bother to consult, 2) the exponential growth of more and more lazy af people that would feel rewarded as if they've learnt something while merely consuming fast food on that familiar page, without any further check (and forgetting it all a few hours later). actually you can consider these two consequences as one, yet another vicious circle. as long as you don't use wikipedia this way, but you do compare an article in multiple languages, with external sources and go visiting other little (biased) websites scattered in the Wired or wherever, you're doing just fine.
I finally managed to block wikipedia from search results (it tends to show up in the sidebar). It's insane how this propaganda-machine has wormed itself into practically EVERY search engine.
What's most surprising is that Wikipedia is bad for quick summaries too. If you want a quick understanding of a topic, there's almost invariably a better resource for that.
Wikipedia is a great tool for looking up really objective trivia bits: what's the population of Newfoundland, what year were each of the Beatles albums released, etc. But when I look up a page on a person for example, I shouldn't see "...is a racist and conspiracy theorist [3][4][5][6]" in the opening paragraph, let alone with the links going to a bunch of dumbass Buzzfeed and Slate articles.
Luke, you did not even touch on the worst thing - that a huge percentage of links in wikipedia articles are dead, and of the ones that are live another large percentage do not say what the articles say they do and sometimes say the exact opposite. This makes auditing the truthfulness of wikipedia articles nearly impossible. And that situation appears to only get worse with time.
What is democracy without journalism? The platform (wikipedia) was revolutionary, it has done more to liberate information than anything that has come before.
@@LukeSmithxyz Without journalists, those chosen in power are less likely to be held accountable. I did not realize you already checked out, and given up on democracy.
Well honestly Wikipedia is really great for some things and understandably terrible for many others. It makes a difference whether you're reading an article about the siege of Sarajevo or about organic chemistry and oxidation states of metal ions. Know what you're reading instead of just flat out banning Wikipedia from your life.
I have found plenty of inaccuracies in Wikipedia. I've tried to convince editors that the information was not accurate but they wouldn't even check the validity.
@@crusaderACR That depends on the pages, some pages are protected against vandalism. But if you have an account for more than a few days, you can modify it.
@@snowcode953 Refer to the Scots language controversy on wikipedia. A single guy refused modifications of anyone on like 100k pages he himself made. Worst thing is he didn't even know the language
I wish Wikipedia was actually neutral and allowed sources from the left-wing, centre and right-wing points of view not just acting as an advocacy group in disguise on political topics.
You know..Wikipedia is an Encyclopaedia.. it’s not “the source”. Actually, it’s provides excellent sources, papers etc so check the details of a claim.
a) I like the idea behind wikipedia b) it is highly useful for non-controversal topics like checking the engine and transmission options of specific vehicles or population of a certain country etc.
I lost all trust in wikipedia when I started noticing articles having spin on them that reinterpreted things I remember from being alive during. GG...amiright
Yep, GG was my first taste at how garbage Wikipedia policies are and how they're meant for biased editors to hide behind and essentially make the site another main steam media outlet. It was pretty unreal to see an article about a protest against media and the only "reliable sources" accepted was by media. It might as well have been written by the journalists gamers were protesting.
What are some good alternatives then? Cause searching for primary sources throughout the internet isn't something you can afford to do all the time. I've tried (and still am) using encyclopedia britannica, but it is very narrowly oriented compared to wikipedia and some of the articles are behind a paywall. Wolfram mathworld is pretty good for maths and physics but it is very non layman-friendly and mathematics is barely a controversial field. So yea, any good recommendations?
I need to understand the mechanics of the editing system, but my experience hasn't been bad using Wikipedia. Always gotta keep it in mind that the info is only as good as the sources.
Having attempted editing for Wikipedia a few times I can honestly say the bias is real. Most recently I attempted to make an edit suggestion on an article for another media platform that would slightly alter it's synopsis. It was a slight change that would merely alter the tone of the synopsis from one that is blatantly liberal-biased to a more objective one. I attempted to cite the website itself in reference to it's categories and was quickly admonished by an admin for using the website itself as a reference. Understandable, but when it's something as intrinsic as the categories displayed within the website I feel that should not be the case. I was told to only use "reliable third-party sources". The kicker is that they then directed me to notes referencing heavily opinion laden articles from BuzzFeed, The Daily Dot, The Verge and even one *youtube video* . After a quick look at this user's "talk" page and following a link to their twitter (which was posted on their talk page) it became very evident why they were fighting so hard to keep a negative tone in the synopsis of the article. I think it's of note that this user is not only and administrator for the site but also has checkuser privileges (can view your accounts IP address), oversight privileges (deletes information in a way that is so thorough even admins can't view it) and is a member of the arbitration committee (settle disputes between editors and determines punitive actions. also decides who has checkuser and oversight privileges). Yes it is biased and with Administrators that have this much authority and can't remain impartial it will remain that way.
This is the same conclusion I came to about Consumer Reports years and years ago. I used to subscribe to it. But then I noticed when they reviewed something that I happened to know a lot about - they look at all the wrong things and ignore what really matters.
This is an excellent parallel! I, too, used to subscribe but noticed that they are horribly biased towards one product over another for no reason at all. Probably funds changing hands under the table.
Yeah, trying to explain why my friend needed to pay attention to the sources section on the Russia-gate wikipedia page (which is exactly what you said - "a repository" of mainstream outlets uncritically repeating eachother's unverified garbage) was a huge headache.
Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for this video. I was looking up the nickname for John and when doing so the name Karen came up. I was shocked to read what Wikipedia gave as the meaning for the name we gave our daughter . The terms they used were not even used when we named her . I did this on 11/24,2022. I will avoid using them for this date forward. Great video but a little to long. Mark
Well said, Wikipedia immediately suggests the way they want you to think about the particular topic/person that you're looking up before you've even learned about it/them, that's if that subject's actions conflict with silicon valley's political affiliations and doners. Notice how they will come straight out with someone as a conspiracy theorist as soon as you begin to read and then talk about their 35 years as a professor who just happened to also revolutionise something in their chosen field and has been highly regarded their whole career up until now for some reason. I never use it and it's hard to find an alternative, I tried online britannica also but they're shit too, in regards to politics mainly. Great video
Why is Wikipedia any different from any other source? People should be skeptical of the information that they read regardless of where it comes from, there aren't any special "decentralised" resources that are objectively true. If it's a topic that you care about, read as broadly as you can, be aware of the potential biases of your sources and then form an opinion.
Thank you very much. I've always wondered what's wrong with Wikipedia. I've been using Wikipedia and for the majority of cases it corresponded to what I knew, but a lot of people really hate it and say that it's wrong to use it for anything (these are mostly intelligent educated people). Now I understand why. I'll have to fix and improve myself to understand everything better.
wikipedia has become a battlefield for editors who think x vs who think y. And this is a problem that's hard to overcome by the side of the media, however the solution it's the same with every piece of information, that is, individual thiking, decentralized information, authority based on technical expertise over politics and aesthetics, even science has become some kind of tecnocracy, jee.
It's fine for pure math proofs as you can follow along yourself so you can confirm if it's right or not, on literally any other topic you are right though.
I trust wikipedia on a lot of subjects, social ones and politics, less. Computer related things are pretty much 90% or better from what I can see, which is pretty much the most important to me.
In 2016 I recommended adding to the 2016 timeline page a part about the at the time recent Pulse Nightclub shooting, which was a rather relevant event with historical repercussions, and I was told in the talk page that it was too "American centric." As of today, they have a section about it on that page. But that shows a pretty clear anti-American bias by some of the users where a major event is just too "American centric" to talk about.
The problem is that biases give birth to biases. Let's say you know for a fact that right now on some topics Wikipedia is biased. It uses biased sources, it censors viewpoints they don't agree with and is no longer neutral. But, you think that this happens only on those topics and nothing else. Sadly this is not how things work. Those articles and topics where once neutral too. But they fell for the bias one topic at a time. Now, as we speak, other topics are becoming biased. Because if you accept lies, manipulation, propaganda and bias there, why don't you accept it here too? So now we got a rippling effect. And, as we already know, "everything is sexist, racist and problematic". That's the mentality, that's the core value of Wikipedia. These people will NOT gonna stop at one religious article! They will march on and "fix" all of them. Then they gonna move to cultural topics, then to arts, then to history and science. And this already happens. Hundred and thousands of articles from biology are re-written to fit with the Wikipedia new found core "values". On short, we may have a period of time where we can still use it, but don't be too optimistic about it. Once you accept deviations from the truth you will not gonna stop. The moral fabric of those people is unraveled, and you can't stich that thing up. Once is gone, is gone, and it takes a huge amount of personal effort to stop and reconsider your ways.
also one of the things is that even after their approved media finally talks about something you HAVE TO only talk about things they deemed worthy of talking and you have to say it the way they did.
For those of you saying you use it for defs and theorems, why not just use the Wolfram wiki? I understand using Wikipedia for looking up quick dates and the most bare bone information but even then it can easily be changed. I specifically remember checking out the Computer Science entry on Wikipedia maybe 5 years ago and the top level explanation was "Computer Science is the study and practice of those who consume Doritos and Mountain Dew while playing video games on their PC". I'm not going to completely object to that entry but just goes to show that the quick edits allowed on Wiki could make it that 1-2 minutes waste of time. I will say I like Wikipedia for including their sources at the bottom but its also rare I have to use Wikipedia and I more use it to play "6 Degrees" when I'm bored.
Wikipedia has a policy where you're not allowed to use primary sources as a source because Wikipedia doesn't pretend to have the expertise to interpret those sources. So, for example, if the President of the United States passes an executive order, the primary source is the executive order and the political analysts in the media would be a secondary source. So yes, any political article on Wikipedia is just shilling the mainstream media, which they take as "credible" or "reputable". The whole idea of Wikipedia being this great place where anyone can contribute is also completely undermined by the ridiculous, ritualistic protocols that Wikipedia editors have to follow when writing articles. Go on Wikipedia right now and try to edit something and it might just get undone because of some silly reason which makes no sense. There's a significant barrier of entry for editing on Wikipedia. That's just the problems I've observed. The idea that Wikipedia as it currently stands is neutral or objective in any way is completely absurd.
Technical pages cite a lot of original papers, or secondary sources in the form of EXPERT technical books. I don't know what wikipedia says on social issues. I'd guess from the few times I've used it, that it's very easy to gain a broad overview some facts AND get some media opinions, as that is also important for an overview. Also neutral language helps very much in removing bias, because it's hard to formulate true statements in a believable neutral way.
A lot of people say Wikipedia is fine for scientific/historical/mathematical topics. I think in general yes, but, especially for history, such opinions may seep down into what is thought to be uncontroversial topics, the less it is used, the better.
I stopped using Wikipedia and other Wikipedia sites for searching for information starting today. There’s a lot of fake information on that site. I was blindsided that the site was good but now I know the truth and for that, I came clean and stopped using it.
As a former editor in the anglospheric side of Wikipedia (but still an active editor in the less batshit insane parts of it; i.e., Romanian language, Russian, as I am fluent in both), I'd like to add my own two cents to this situation: Have a look at the Talk pages and track some of the more interesting editors' posts in them. There were people trying to do good in many of the articles and attempting to even present information that wasn't necessarily friendly to their own politics. They wanted to go beyond their own personal biases and instinct to "right wrongs". It wasn't long before the rules of Wikipedia and its mission statement was weaponized against them. No primary sources? Only if they don't align with the political views of The Committee(tm). Primary sources are just fine in articles "we" like. If you want to cite something a right-wing politician said in its full context, and you have personally recorded it, you can't use that. You HAVE to use the tertiary/secondary source where the media quotes them out of context. That's just one example. There are thousands upon thousands I can heap here but I frankly do not have the time as I have a nix consultation business to run. If you'd like to have a talk about it with me personally I would be more than happy to. My fingers hurt from typing all day, so using my voice is better :D
Wikipedia is still good for lists of historical structures, some mathematics, and some basic information about software (e.g., Linux distros, open-source projects, filesystems). I have not trusted that site for anything political for years.
Nowadays what I do is to use Wiktionary which allows rapid query on any word, this is specially useful if you know that Latins lexicon has influenced all western European languages to the core, so much that any subject: specially scientific, philosophical and theological; can be clarified by the etymology of the lexicon involved.
Reminds me of Kurzgesagt. It used to be a great channel portraying interesting facts and stating very clearly once they leave the realm of science and enter their opinion or explore an idea. I feel that because of this, they are now established as an objective channel with unbiased information but at some point they stopped the clear division of facts and opinion and started with political or other controversial topics. Since then I could not stand them anymore because I get the impression that it seems to people as if they are still just portraying facts. It could be that they got better again but I stopped checking their videos so I wouldn't know about it. I don't know if wikipedia is as bad as you say but since I mostly used it to look up some science related stuff or names, I doubt that there is much bias here.
I've despised that channel from the very beginning. I saw a few videos that were narrated by Alain de Botton. Had bad vibes, so (ironically) looked up him on Wikipedia and learned he's a Cambridge academic.
media be like: it says on wikipedia
wikipedia: sources:media
There's a Wikipedia-Article in *every single language that Wikipedia supports* on why Wikipedia is NOT a valid source.
@@stevanmiladinovic4007 Wikipedia is not a valid source *for wikipedia*.
Any article at any time may contain vandalism or original research, which is a big no-no.
@@TheDankEngineer Wikipedia is not a valid scientific source period.
@@stevanmiladinovic4007 yes, this is a fact, which is why edits must not be sourced directly from wikipedia but rather from an official source.
Copying info from wiki article to wiki article is a big no-no unless sources are also copied over which support the conclusions reached.
Wikipedia is a great jumping-off point for research though, and can help you get a general idea of what you're doing. It's an encyclopedia, not an all-knowing being.
Using it as your sole research point is stupid, but you should use it to help you navigate topics you know nothing about.
It's like that obama giving medal to obama meme
I never use Wikipedia for politics unless it's history related (like reading about how the Constitution was written). I use Wikipedia for science technology engineering and math topics 99% of the time. The kind of stuff that you can't really have bias about or things you can't fake. (like you cant fake the fundamental theorem of calculus)
yet
Much of that stuff is also uselessly laid out.
It could be biased, the devil is in the details.
Would not have survived some of my college comp sci classes without wikipedia. Anything outside of mathematics on there (including history) is useless imo
Even on history it's absolute trash
One of the best tricks is to use Wikipedia bilingually, if you really need to use it.
The problem is that, at least in the spanish wikipedia, a huge amount of the articles are just (bad) translations of the english ones, even in some articles wikipedia put a disclaimer saying this article is translated from other article.
Use english and latin wikipedia 😎
doesn't help you if the other language you speak is german
@@JR-oc5yf the English Wikipedia is actually FLOODED of many shitty editors that you must to identify a fake news and discern with a cherry-picking reference loot. Spanish Wikipedia can lack of this kind of moderation, but some articles are well-made.
German Wikipedia blasts to the rest of the Wikipedia.
Portuguese Wikipedia = English wikipedia + google translator + badly written style.
did you tried to create a page about yourself again?
awowkwkwk
That was savage
@@sandikodev >using aowkkw instead of hahahaha
i see you are indonesian
Did you try*
@@weakspirit_
here
Ok, but as you said, there is no real solution to Wikipedia, so I'll just use it with the filter implemented in my brain, as always.
I think it's very easy to distinguish "controversial" articles from articles on physics, mathematics, etc., which are 99% based on university articles, etc. Wikipedia is like all other websites, but its advantage is that you can easily check sources, discussions and other language versions of these articles. Therefore, you should be smart enough to verify before pressing those information into your brain.
Simple enough I think.
Additionally, I think Wikipedia guys (inventors) are really cool, they actually use free software and they don't put tons of ads and javascript bloat that I would need to block.
@@Anonymous-hk4cj Yes, that's a great argument. I really don't want to start a discussion about politics, but i think that what makes a liberal setting stand ahead of socialisms is infact the ability of choice for the individual (accompanied by a good deal of intelligence in selecting what's good for himself, and hopefully respect for the other)
@@Houshalter I don't know about what small specific webpages you are talking. Specific sites that I'm using are fine and they are doing their own thing well. Maybe I'm just not informed enough, but I agree with you that it would be awesome to have decentralized model of sites with Wikipedia being one of them all and not one above them all.
i like your profile
Well, not that you can trust university articles. Nothing can be trusted, not even your own judgement, maybe especially your own judgement. The best thing to do is to be aware of as many possibilities as possible and experiment with different ideas until you get the results that you want. Being too committed to ideas is a bad idea that always leads either to terrible results or to stagnation. Most problems in the world come from people using ideas as a source of identity, getting too attached to that identity, and then being completely unwilling to change and improve.
The Virgin Wikipedia vs the Chad 18th Century London Coffeehouse
OK
@@stevethea5250 shut up
@@stevethea5250 Shut up.
oh
unfortunately wikipedia is its own social media channel at this point.another vehicle to push the corporate narrative
idk I have found the Early Life section useful
Yep, he's based.
Based
Nice
Based.
Based.
I use Wikipedia often, but I only really use it for math topics, or occasionally historical things. For current events, I just use memes.
ngl Wikipedia is pretty accurate and rich in terms of mathematical topics and it offers really robust examples
This is quite the rapid fire. I use Wikipedia to research established facts. Not news. Wikipedia news is just a aggregate for other sites. Please do a follow-up with examples of established facts that have bias in them. I would be very interested in that.
Good point. I would add that that's the main use case for Wikipedia anyway
Basically everything political on Wikipedia is extremely biased
^ this
if im researching mathematics, physics, biology, computer science... anything real and based basically.. wikipedia is rather good.
Mark Levin has brought to light verifiably false information on himself. He has contacted Wikipedia directly and they have refused to make corrections to the false information. He is a conservative news commentator.
@@soundmanbrad That is still very different from things such as how an algorithm works. As you said, he is a news commentator, he is inherently political. Just avoid that part of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is just a source of information like many others. There's no such thing as a trustworthy source in my opinion, you just compare information from multiple sources and make a decision out of that.
anyway this video is ironic, all this channel is some kind of sarcasm
^^^critical thinking
Wikipedia seems to be very politicaly bias and thats the problem
They have been calling themselves "the free encyclopedia" for years! They purport themselves to be an unbiased source of information, whereas that couldn't be farther from the truth.
@Lacey Holmes alright man this is the 5th time. What does "based" means ?
This makes me sad cause I write a lot for Wikipedia :(
It is true though, so many sources on rely on msm articles. I always aim to source from books and papers where I can, it's not a hopeless issue.
I'm happy though that you demonstrate some knowledgability about how Wikipedia is actually run and its policies; No Original Research is a pain in the ass sometimes but a line has to be drawn as to how to measure notability.
No Original Research is just a consequence of the policy of verifiability to be honest.
@@Extys Not quite. While it does play a big role in ensuring verifiability, WP:NOR importantly covers WP:SYNTH. It is possible do original research while still being verifiable, by purely taking multiple reliable sources and synthesising them, but it's not allowed. Regardless of how obviously connectable two facts may seem to be. At first glance that might seem unfair - but actually, it's far too much of a leap to let editors apply what they feel is logical, what serves their prejudice, biases, etc. On the matter of notability, articles unchecked for OR is how irrelevant, unnotable, garbage and fancruft gets in. Checkout the Garfield article, and have a look at the paragraphs that entirely rely on connecting up primary sources. Horrid stuff.
@JC S Ah sorry, did you write the Garfield article? Did not mean to offend.
@@derick1259 But of course 'trusted authors' can't possibly be as biased as or more than wikipedia editors, oh no..
@@jacobscrackers98 Who's denying that? I don't know what your position is, but if it's that of Luke's, then I don't understand what your point is. Luke is arguing that Wikipedia overwhelmingly represents the biases and prejudices of MSM, which is a fair argument. He is also arguing, it seems fatalistically, that Wikipedia fails to also represent (ultimately, the biases and prejudices of) authors, academics and, uh... I guess redditors. I don't really accept that. Plenty of books and academic material is used. User-generated-content (reddit, etc) tends to be used as primary source, usually to qualify or cross-reference something another source said. The whole point is, Wikipedia represents the different biases of material you find in a library and elsewhere, which is all a encyclopedia does. Not the single biases of the editors themselves. I recommend reading this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth
Hahaha, "come on Wikipedia. Accept this Reddit thread on Holocaust revisionism."
STICK TO ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
Nobody on Reddit loses their job for giving a wrong answer.
Credentials automatically make you wrong.
But Luke, how will I become buddhist by reading few lines of text from Wikipedia?!
Eternally based.
By finding the right thread on /x/
@@andrew_mb How 2 summon succubus?
@@TheAnalatheist And the nobody general thread
@@TheAnalatheist what is based ?
> media bad
> reddit thread good
Seriously, who uses Wikipedia for news and opinions and actually believes im what it says?
For me wikipedia has always been a great tool for jumpstarting into a subject, and more like an index of what i should research if i want any sort of deep knowledge on that topic
>media bad
>reddit bad
>wikipedia bad
>4chan x post good
>luv me larpers
>luv me psycho schizo larpers
>simple as
@@g00zik97 >Media good
>Reddit good
>State Department good
>UN Council on Foreign Relations good
>World Economic Forum good
>World Health Organization Good
>ADL good
>SPLC good
>Now I’m gonna pretend anyone who doesn’t get information from the sources of the globalist cabal is a 4channer, a dated site that nobody notable uses anymore
Yep, Wikipedia is out of my life since 2012. It got so bad back then, can't even imagine how shit it is now.
Sad
Same so glad I stopped using that propaganda website
All of my teachers throughout high school literally made it a point several times, DO NOT TRUST/USE WIKIPEDIA for referencing information. Since the beginning of high school (ok maybe like yr 2) it was drilled into us all. My first year or high school was 8 years ago- I went to high school in Scotland.It's low key irking me that I'm only just seeing a video like this now...
My teachers went further. They didn't trust sources from Wikipedia. They were bad teachers. I think they misunderstood something. It was fairly early on in public schools discovery of Wikipedia.
Same here but I graduated in 2005. Even in college they'd doc points for Wikipedia because it's not robust self-research. Teaching the kid to do their own research is the point.
However recently I've seen people your age and younger insist Wikipedia is the ultimate repository of ALL knowledge and facts. They really think it can't be edited by anyone but official experts and scholars.
Tbh even if only "experts" could edit it, it'd still be biased. Then it would be the persons/organizations declaring unfit or only certain people "expert" enough to contribute.
If Galileo were alive today he wouldn't have had a chance editing or posting his research on Wiki.
Though I am glad some people like us still can see how this centralizing of info is problematic.
I learned this lesson the hard way in 2017, when I rewrote the International Phonetic Alphabet templates.
It's *extremely* toxic, and *what* *gets* *in* *isn't* *what's* *true* -- *it's* *what's* *most* *persistent* .
Can you describe it in more detail?
Stop using words like toxic
@@5days61 I'm not using the Woke/Leftist meaning of the word. I just mean that the people who edit are largely insufferable asshats without the slightest shrivel of emotional intelligence or integrity; operating solely off of pride, anxiety, and other mental disorders.
@@5days61 why?
@@5days61 You are toxic
I use wikipedia for the "EARLY LIFE" section
sorry to tell you this Luke, but... most people don't have a BS detector as our history proves quite the contrary
Hey Luke, actual examples works be useful. Stuff I look up is usually stuff like critical fracture toughness. Pretty accurate and well summarized last time I checked.
Obama's page vs Trump's page
'nuff said
It's not that it is always wrong or inaccurate, but it's full of information that is ripped straight from crappy journalism
Web Wanderer,
tldr: English Wikipedia articles on "wrongthink" topics or people look just like ones from The Big Soviet Encyclopedia as they both begin with ideological/pseudoscience/unethical/personal accusations.
I’m from Russia, and it’s the most unpleasant thing about the English Wikipedia. I’ve read a number of articles form the BSE so I know what I’m talking about. For example look at "Вульгарная политическая экономия" [vulgar political economics, a term for any other economical theory which dares criticize Marxism] in the BSE and compare it with any modern political/controversial article on wiki, the similarity will be uncanny.
difficult to put political spin on physics and engineering topics... They'll find a way one day
Anything political (avoid all).
Any article on an individual.
It will either be basically advertising (meaning they paid for it or had it written to support their career or person) or a bunch of highly selective moral judgements on someone's supposed views, or the views they suppose them to have, avoids actually explaining their views ofc. e.g. reducing their views to a label such as 'sexist' without understanding much less explaining them. People are not caricatures.
Anything you notice, regardless of the article, that relates to the present day events or tries to shoehorn some present day ideology into something (happens a lot in the history articles, wilful misinterpretation and misrepresentation for ideological goodboy points).
Anything regarding the achievements or supposed achievements of women (looking at you in particular Ada Lovelace).
Basically: history rewritten or represented for ideological purposes AND presentday political propaganda AND personal or sometimes organisational advertisement.
@@redd_cat The left sticks to what is believable and puts in cumulative bias over time and the right just goes off the rails immediately.
This is why "Reliable" sources always have a slight left wing bias. The left has been gradually and steadily shifting the overton window while the right tried way too hard and lost traction immediately.
I use it for reading about animals and plants because it usually has range maps. For history or anything else its appalling.
I STUDY PHYSICS AND I HAVE TO SAY RESEARCHING IN WIKIPEDIA IS SOMETIMES CONVENIENT BECAUSE OF THE TIME YOU DON'T HAVE. I USSUALLY GO FOR MATH AND SCIENCE STUFF AND AS I READ I CAN SAY IT WAS WRITTEN BY PROFFESSIONALS BECAUSE TOPICS LIKE QUANTUM MODELINGS OR INFINTE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE THEOREMS CAN'T BE WRITTEN WITH THAT LEVEL, BY JOURNALISTS. AND LIKE U, I DON'T EVEN TRUST IN MY OWN SHADOW, SO WHEN I'M READING SOMETHING THAT IT'S NOT DEMONSTRATED OR THE DEMOSTRATION IS KINDA WEIRD I JUST GO TO THE CITATIONS. SOME MONTHS AGO I WAS READING A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE STERN-GERLACH EXPERIMENT AND IN THE ARTICLE THERE WAS LIKE A NOTE THAT SAID IT'S NEEDED A REVISION AND A LINK TO A DISCUSSION WHERE A STUDENT WAS TALKING WITH THE AUTHOR OF THAT PAGE IN WIKIPEDIA AND HE WAS CLEARLY A PHYSCIST AND HE EVEN GAVE TO HER SOME LINKS WITH INFORMATION WRITTEN BY FEYMAN ITSELF AND SOME SPRINGER ARTICLE. SO I THINK FOR MATH/SCIENCE TOPICS IT'S OK BUT WE HAVE TO VERYFY THE CITATIONS. BUT AS U SAY FOR SOCIAL TOPICS WE HAVE TO BELIEVE IN NONE.
OK THANK YOU
I only use Wikipedia for math and science and to see what the overlords of the world would like for me to believe.
Depends on the math and science. It is fine for looking up something non-controversial and purely factual like how to find eigenvectors. But if you look up something controversial like "global warming" then you will be lied to.
@@MrEdrftgyuji The article about global warming has over 300 sources, mostly from scientific papers. Where exactly are they lying?
@@MrEdrftgyuji That is true.
@@atmbm5261 This isn't the place to discuss that topic, there's plenty of well reasoned arguments online as to why the current establishment consensus on GW is flawed and may not be true. However, you are not going to find those arguments being discussed on Wikipedia in any great detail.
In terms of reference counts, you might as well say that the statement "Orange Man Bad" must be scientifically true because there are over 3,000 references from CNN, MSNBC and University Professors on Twitter stating so. And these organisations and people never lie according to Google, so the statement must be true.
@@MrEdrftgyuji Ahh you are one of those GW critics.. Well tell me more. I always hear "Do your own research" or "don't believe the mainstream media". I actually did my research, and there is no reason why the climate change is not human made. The scientific consensus is *huuge*. There are not many subjects where the consensus is so immense.
While I agree that those opinions are not discussed in great detail, I'm very grateful that it isn't. Those "opinions" are mostly propaganda or unscientifc arguments which should not have the same platform against a 97% consensus of scientists who conclude that the climate change is real.
Trump has nothing to do with this. Global warming is a scientific subject and the orange man is politics. I don't get where you want to go with this argument. Of course a lot of articles are biased. That's the human nature, you have to read articles with healthy scepticism.
Though he is an absolute asshole for what he is saying during this crisis.
Back in 2008, the administrators of Wikipedia acted to the effect of saying that I was not allowed to write on my user page about my stand on gender politics.
Me during college years: as an open source encyclopedia, Wikipedia is tops.
Professors during my college years:
Wikipedia is not a viable source.
Me long after college: Wikipedia is biased.
College professors long after I left:
Wikipedia is valid.
Lessons learned:
Wikipedia's legitimacy has changed & Professors are still getting it wrong.
If you do the opposite of what professors say you will do good
I only use wikipedia to check that early life button, when checking whos a member of the tribe
Yeah, I always wait for the mainstream media to report on the Fast Fourier Transform before I upload the article to Wikipedia
Who tf learns FFT from Wikipedia? It's taught in all undergrad science and engineering courses. If I somehow skipped that course, then I'll pick up a textbook, not Wikipedia.
Better yet, Independently reinvent Fast Fourier Transforms yourself.
Return to Monke.
What was meant to be a repository of human knowledge is now a repository of human bias to it's worst degree. That's what happens when curation takes over as a persons prime motive and nothing is left to the people anymore.
@@shannonm.townsend1232 nice try. try again. This time be less obvious in your tactics.
@@shannonm.townsend1232 You tried. E for effort. Do better net time you try to be disingenuous.
>People are natural BS detectors
>Proceeds to not trust people to detect BS in Wikipedia articles
Alternate title: Krillin grows a nose and facial hair and becomes an antisocial Linux hipster.
His dots on the forehead disappear
You didn't mention that Wikipedia is no longer editable by anyone. Now, you need to be part of a special circle to edit articles.
No prizes for guessing who gets accepted into that club.
Right
Wait, O vey?
whom'stve?
Correction: changing semi-protected (generally the most visited or controversial) articles require a account that is verified. Less popular pages can still be edited by anyone with an unbanned IP. But, after some research, I can confirm the hierarchy is indeed very rigid and dogmatic. If you make edits an admin doesn't like or agree with, your IP will be quickly banned. The number of editors has severely declined over the past decade due to this authoritarian, increasingly centralized caste system.
@@forkliftabortion2458 I'm a verified editor who's able to edit protected and extended-protected articles... I don't feel that special.
Hey Luke, I am going to make a wikipedia page about you.
Do it! 🇧🇬
It's maybe going to be removed for sure because it is not a good topic for an encyclopedia.
I've used Wikipedia for CS research for years, it's not the only resource I use and if something looks dodgy I check the citations. Hasn't hurt me yet.
"cs research"
@@azngoku666 Yes I am a computer science student.
Oh nice
There is no Wikipedia article on the Murray-Gell-Mann-Effect... 🤔
There is a whole team of biased editors tweaking and changing even the tiniest facts to make their home team look more presentable in world opinion.
tl;dr Continue using Wikipedia for sciences and non-controversial subjects, please...
Wikipedia is extremely useful for unbiased quantitative topics such as maths, computer science or physics. Tbh all sciences, including psychology even. The best thing is that it links sources, which link more sources and etc. It isn't meant to be (or at least shouldn't be) used for anything remotely controversial where bias and human error can exist.
Take calculus for example - it will exhaust concisely give you everything you could ever need to know, and you know that it's probably definitely correct because it gets checked and is easily checked. If any information isn't there, find some line and click on the source link and there's your information you needed.
Take history as another example - it's not so easy to prove as it is based on past media, which isn't necessarily based on truth and can't be proven easily. This can provoke controversy, and as a result, information can be contradictory and sources will be biased to what media says and what editors want you to think/see. This is unfortunately something Wikipedia isn't useful for.
lol WikiLeaks is the perfect place for that :)
@@tissuepaper9962 The problem with using Wikipedia for current events/history is that the sources in the bibliography will be biased in the same way. May as well just cut out the middleman and go straight for MSM. It will very rarely show anything from the opposing view point, let alone with an actual source.
Don't trust anyone, not even yourself
it's plagued with "reviewers" who will apply their personal view on a subject and will delete whatever addition the don't agree with, not following the objective rules, they get admin levels based on activity and not on a knowledge base, it's a waste of time redact anything anymore you'll get everything deleted, they delete like if they get points for activity
No Luke no, there is one big difference between news media and Wikipedia: most journalists do not feel the need to cite sources, in Wikipedia you have to. And if you use Wikipedia looking at references, aware that it can't be better than the sources, Wikipedia IS amazingly useful. Most often, sources at not good for current topics and politics. But that's not what one usually uses Wikipedia for. Also, fact checking does not work that way.
Wikipedias sources are often those same journalists. This is not an argument.
I think I got the point entirely. If I see that the main source of an entry is a crappy article, I will consider that entry unreliable. I have a way to see where information comes from. I don't think it makes sense to say that "Wikipedia is biased" globally. I think Wikipedia is a website whose pages are written by different people with different biases. Each of these people has to cite some sources, so I can see (even if indirectly) if the specific entry I'm reading is worth considering.
In fact, I do not assume every article is reliable. But instead of stopping using Wikipedia as a matter of principle I might consider contributing to improve articles about things I am actually competent about.
the "point" doesn't seem to be the biases. even scientific papers -- the gospel of our current age, besides they are not even read -- also cannot help but have biases. what's more crucial, from a bunch of dull conspiracy theorists' perspective, is rather the centralization of the information. therefore, more power to one source (in this case, wikipedia) represents two main consequences basically: 1) the burial of other little independent sources that less people bother to consult, 2) the exponential growth of more and more lazy af people that would feel rewarded as if they've learnt something while merely consuming fast food on that familiar page, without any further check (and forgetting it all a few hours later). actually you can consider these two consequences as one, yet another vicious circle.
as long as you don't use wikipedia this way, but you do compare an article in multiple languages, with external sources and go visiting other little (biased) websites scattered in the Wired or wherever, you're doing just fine.
Wikipedia's gamergate article made me drop them
I finally managed to block wikipedia from search results (it tends to show up in the sidebar). It's insane how this propaganda-machine has wormed itself into practically EVERY search engine.
What's most surprising is that Wikipedia is bad for quick summaries too. If you want a quick understanding of a topic, there's almost invariably a better resource for that.
Some proud prolific Wikipedia editors disliked this video.
I think you're right on the money though.
Wikipedia is a great tool for looking up really objective trivia bits: what's the population of Newfoundland, what year were each of the Beatles albums released, etc. But when I look up a page on a person for example, I shouldn't see "...is a racist and conspiracy theorist [3][4][5][6]" in the opening paragraph, let alone with the links going to a bunch of dumbass Buzzfeed and Slate articles.
Luke, you did not even touch on the worst thing - that a huge percentage of links in wikipedia articles are dead, and of the ones that are live another large percentage do not say what the articles say they do and sometimes say the exact opposite. This makes auditing the truthfulness of wikipedia articles nearly impossible. And that situation appears to only get worse with time.
Finally, someone addressing this. My favorite unaboomer
What is democracy without journalism? The platform (wikipedia) was revolutionary, it has done more to liberate information than anything that has come before.
Considering "democracy" just means total rule by the information-molding class, I suppose democracy can't exist without journalists.
@@LukeSmithxyz Without journalists, those chosen in power are less likely to be held accountable. I did not realize you already checked out, and given up on democracy.
I used to roll my eyes at teachers calling Wikipedia not a valid source
I'm embarrassed to admit I used to give money to Wikipedia. I haven't for 5 years now.
It is not neutral at all. It's written by people on their high horse who think they are special for editing HTML pages.
And they do it for FREE!
Fuck jannies
*tink tink tink*
Fuck jannies.
Well honestly Wikipedia is really great for some things and understandably terrible for many others. It makes a difference whether you're reading an article about the siege of Sarajevo or about organic chemistry and oxidation states of metal ions. Know what you're reading instead of just flat out banning Wikipedia from your life.
I have found plenty of inaccuracies in Wikipedia. I've tried to convince editors that the information was not accurate but they wouldn't even check the validity.
Why don't you simply changed it?
@@snowcode953 Only certain people are allowed. Not us plebs.
It isn't what it used to be
@@crusaderACR That depends on the pages, some pages are protected against vandalism. But if you have an account for more than a few days, you can modify it.
@@snowcode953 Refer to the Scots language controversy on wikipedia. A single guy refused modifications of anyone on like 100k pages he himself made.
Worst thing is he didn't even know the language
Oh that guy is the admin of the entire Scots language, though again, he doesn't speak it
I wish Wikipedia was actually neutral and allowed sources from the left-wing, centre and right-wing points of view not just acting as an advocacy group in disguise on political topics.
You know..Wikipedia is an Encyclopaedia.. it’s not “the source”. Actually, it’s provides excellent sources, papers etc so check the details of a claim.
10:52 "People have natural BS detectors"
(x) Doubt
Couldn't agree more with you on this one Luke. Thanks for yet another great video.
a) I like the idea behind wikipedia
b) it is highly useful for non-controversal topics like checking the engine and transmission options of specific vehicles or population of a certain country etc.
Wikipedia moderators are worse than redditors.
For me Wikipedia is mainly a source for good diagrams and graphs.
Any topic that is slightly political is absolutely fucked.
I lost all trust in wikipedia when I started noticing articles having spin on them that reinterpreted things I remember from being alive during. GG...amiright
@Bloatman McEmacs Alex Jones said it was demons, I've never seen demons, but wikipedia says demons don't exist, who do I trust?
Yep, GG was my first taste at how garbage Wikipedia policies are and how they're meant for biased editors to hide behind and essentially make the site another main steam media outlet. It was pretty unreal to see an article about a protest against media and the only "reliable sources" accepted was by media. It might as well have been written by the journalists gamers were protesting.
Some guys have created an alternative to wikipedia - Infogalactic
You can lie with truth,
And you can tell the truth with lies
What are some good alternatives then? Cause searching for primary sources throughout the internet isn't something you can afford to do all the time. I've tried (and still am) using encyclopedia britannica, but it is very narrowly oriented compared to wikipedia and some of the articles are behind a paywall. Wolfram mathworld is pretty good for maths and physics but it is very non layman-friendly and mathematics is barely a controversial field. So yea, any good recommendations?
What Larry Sanger is working on.
I need to understand the mechanics of the editing system, but my experience hasn't been bad using Wikipedia. Always gotta keep it in mind that the info is only as good as the sources.
My take is just don't it use or be careful when reading about politics and other controversial topics
Having attempted editing for Wikipedia a few times I can honestly say the bias is real. Most recently I attempted to make an edit suggestion on an article for another media platform that would slightly alter it's synopsis. It was a slight change that would merely alter the tone of the synopsis from one that is blatantly liberal-biased to a more objective one. I attempted to cite the website itself in reference to it's categories and was quickly admonished by an admin for using the website itself as a reference. Understandable, but when it's something as intrinsic as the categories displayed within the website I feel that should not be the case. I was told to only use "reliable third-party sources". The kicker is that they then directed me to notes referencing heavily opinion laden articles from BuzzFeed, The Daily Dot, The Verge and even one *youtube video* . After a quick look at this user's "talk" page and following a link to their twitter (which was posted on their talk page) it became very evident why they were fighting so hard to keep a negative tone in the synopsis of the article. I think it's of note that this user is not only and administrator for the site but also has checkuser privileges (can view your accounts IP address), oversight privileges (deletes information in a way that is so thorough even admins can't view it) and is a member of the arbitration committee (settle disputes between editors and determines punitive actions. also decides who has checkuser and oversight privileges). Yes it is biased and with Administrators that have this much authority and can't remain impartial it will remain that way.
This is the same conclusion I came to about Consumer Reports years and years ago. I used to subscribe to it. But then I noticed when they reviewed something that I happened to know a lot about - they look at all the wrong things and ignore what really matters.
This is an excellent parallel! I, too, used to subscribe but noticed that they are horribly biased towards one product over another for no reason at all. Probably funds changing hands under the table.
Yeah, trying to explain why my friend needed to pay attention to the sources section on the Russia-gate wikipedia page (which is exactly what you said - "a repository" of mainstream outlets uncritically repeating eachother's unverified garbage) was a huge headache.
What can we use instead of Wikipedia? What about Everipedia?
In my first university writing class, the lecturer told us one principal: never cite Wikipedia.
I think wikipedia is still ok for stuff that isn't political or doesn't 'matter' i.e., movie details, non-political historical events, etc.
Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for this video.
I was looking up the nickname for John and when doing so the name Karen came up.
I was shocked to read what Wikipedia gave as the meaning for the name we gave our daughter .
The terms they used were not even used when we named her . I did this on 11/24,2022.
I will avoid using them for this date forward.
Great video but a little to long.
Mark
Well said, Wikipedia immediately suggests the way they want you to think about the particular topic/person that you're looking up before you've even learned about it/them, that's if that subject's actions conflict with silicon valley's political affiliations and doners. Notice how they will come straight out with someone as a conspiracy theorist as soon as you begin to read and then talk about their 35 years as a professor who just happened to also revolutionise something in their chosen field and has been highly regarded their whole career up until now for some reason. I never use it and it's hard to find an alternative, I tried online britannica also but they're shit too, in regards to politics mainly. Great video
Arabic wikipedia is MUCH worse than English wikipedia
Why is Wikipedia any different from any other source? People should be skeptical of the information that they read regardless of where it comes from, there aren't any special "decentralised" resources that are objectively true. If it's a topic that you care about, read as broadly as you can, be aware of the potential biases of your sources and then form an opinion.
If I'm not supposed to use Wikipedia, how am I supposed to know who's an alien? Other sites don't have a convenient "Early Life" section. 👽👾
Thank you very much. I've always wondered what's wrong with Wikipedia. I've been using Wikipedia and for the majority of cases it corresponded to what I knew, but a lot of people really hate it and say that it's wrong to use it for anything (these are mostly intelligent educated people). Now I understand why. I'll have to fix and improve myself to understand everything better.
wikipedia is a repository of media biases! - a very right and important statement
Full circle. My high school profs were always damn leery of it (for different reasons of course) and always recommended steering clear.
Trust Wikipedia as much as you'd trust a fan-made Wiki for a videogame.
wikipedia has become a battlefield for editors who think x vs who think y. And this is a problem that's hard to overcome by the side of the media, however the solution it's the same with every piece of information, that is, individual thiking, decentralized information, authority based on technical expertise over politics and aesthetics, even science has become some kind of tecnocracy, jee.
It's fine for pure math proofs as you can follow along yourself so you can confirm if it's right or not, on literally any other topic you are right though.
Gotta admit Rachel Maddow looks absolutely like Steve from Blues Clues.
At least wikipedia is better than its "alternative" version here in the People's Republic of China called 百度百科.
I trust wikipedia on a lot of subjects, social ones and politics, less.
Computer related things are pretty much 90% or better from what I can see, which is pretty much the most important to me.
In 2016 I recommended adding to the 2016 timeline page a part about the at the time recent Pulse Nightclub shooting, which was a rather relevant event with historical repercussions, and I was told in the talk page that it was too "American centric." As of today, they have a section about it on that page. But that shows a pretty clear anti-American bias by some of the users where a major event is just too "American centric" to talk about.
So what sources should one use on the internet then?
Wikipedia isn't even a "source". It links to sources.
An Encyclopaedia isn’t a source.
read old books
the older the better
It's still a source. If it can be referenced to then it's a source of information. Most media present informations gotten from somewhere else.
wikipedia is fine . in history , islam , middle east stay away from it
Open internet is dead. Little hats win again.
I've heard it being called "newspaper amnesia"
The problem is that biases give birth to biases.
Let's say you know for a fact that right now on some topics Wikipedia is biased. It uses biased sources, it censors viewpoints they don't agree with and is no longer neutral.
But, you think that this happens only on those topics and nothing else.
Sadly this is not how things work. Those articles and topics where once neutral too. But they fell for the bias one topic at a time. Now, as we speak, other topics are becoming biased. Because if you accept lies, manipulation, propaganda and bias there, why don't you accept it here too?
So now we got a rippling effect. And, as we already know, "everything is sexist, racist and problematic". That's the mentality, that's the core value of Wikipedia. These people will NOT gonna stop at one religious article! They will march on and "fix" all of them.
Then they gonna move to cultural topics, then to arts, then to history and science.
And this already happens. Hundred and thousands of articles from biology are re-written to fit with the Wikipedia new found core "values".
On short, we may have a period of time where we can still use it, but don't be too optimistic about it. Once you accept deviations from the truth you will not gonna stop. The moral fabric of those people is unraveled, and you can't stich that thing up. Once is gone, is gone, and it takes a huge amount of personal effort to stop and reconsider your ways.
also one of the things is that even after their approved media finally talks about something you HAVE TO only talk about things they deemed worthy of talking and you have to say it the way they did.
For those of you saying you use it for defs and theorems, why not just use the Wolfram wiki? I understand using Wikipedia for looking up quick dates and the most bare bone information but even then it can easily be changed. I specifically remember checking out the Computer Science entry on Wikipedia maybe 5 years ago and the top level explanation was "Computer Science is the study and practice of those who consume Doritos and Mountain Dew while playing video games on their PC". I'm not going to completely object to that entry but just goes to show that the quick edits allowed on Wiki could make it that 1-2 minutes waste of time. I will say I like Wikipedia for including their sources at the bottom but its also rare I have to use Wikipedia and I more use it to play "6 Degrees" when I'm bored.
Wikipedia has a policy where you're not allowed to use primary sources as a source because Wikipedia doesn't pretend to have the expertise to interpret those sources. So, for example, if the President of the United States passes an executive order, the primary source is the executive order and the political analysts in the media would be a secondary source. So yes, any political article on Wikipedia is just shilling the mainstream media, which they take as "credible" or "reputable".
The whole idea of Wikipedia being this great place where anyone can contribute is also completely undermined by the ridiculous, ritualistic protocols that Wikipedia editors have to follow when writing articles. Go on Wikipedia right now and try to edit something and it might just get undone because of some silly reason which makes no sense. There's a significant barrier of entry for editing on Wikipedia.
That's just the problems I've observed. The idea that Wikipedia as it currently stands is neutral or objective in any way is completely absurd.
Technical pages cite a lot of original papers, or secondary sources in the form of EXPERT technical books.
I don't know what wikipedia says on social issues. I'd guess from the few times I've used it, that it's very easy to gain a broad overview some facts AND get some media opinions, as that is also important for an overview.
Also neutral language helps very much in removing bias, because it's hard to formulate true statements in a believable neutral way.
Wikinews does allow original research, but I think it also allows citing other news articles as a source too tough.
A lot of people say Wikipedia is fine for scientific/historical/mathematical topics. I think in general yes, but, especially for history, such opinions may seep down into what is thought to be uncontroversial topics, the less it is used, the better.
I stopped using Wikipedia and other Wikipedia sites for searching for information starting today. There’s a lot of fake information on that site. I was blindsided that the site was good but now I know the truth and for that, I came clean and stopped using it.
As a former editor in the anglospheric side of Wikipedia (but still an active editor in the less batshit insane parts of it; i.e., Romanian language, Russian, as I am fluent in both), I'd like to add my own two cents to this situation:
Have a look at the Talk pages and track some of the more interesting editors' posts in them. There were people trying to do good in many of the articles and attempting to even present information that wasn't necessarily friendly to their own politics. They wanted to go beyond their own personal biases and instinct to "right wrongs". It wasn't long before the rules of Wikipedia and its mission statement was weaponized against them.
No primary sources? Only if they don't align with the political views of The Committee(tm). Primary sources are just fine in articles "we" like.
If you want to cite something a right-wing politician said in its full context, and you have personally recorded it, you can't use that. You HAVE to use the tertiary/secondary source where the media quotes them out of context.
That's just one example. There are thousands upon thousands I can heap here but I frankly do not have the time as I have a nix consultation business to run.
If you'd like to have a talk about it with me personally I would be more than happy to. My fingers hurt from typing all day, so using my voice is better :D
Wikipedia is still good for lists of historical structures, some mathematics, and some basic information about software (e.g., Linux distros, open-source projects, filesystems). I have not trusted that site for anything political for years.
Nowadays what I do is to use Wiktionary which allows rapid query on any word, this is specially useful if you know that Latins lexicon has influenced all western European languages to the core, so much that any subject: specially scientific, philosophical and theological; can be clarified by the etymology of the lexicon involved.
Incoming unfunny "wikipedia is bloat" comments
Well, it is a few 100 gigs, and a large portion is "local politician self inserts his own wiki page because he's IMPORTANT!1!11!!"
Reminds me of Kurzgesagt. It used to be a great channel portraying interesting facts and stating very clearly once they leave the realm of science and enter their opinion or explore an idea. I feel that because of this, they are now established as an objective channel with unbiased information but at some point they stopped the clear division of facts and opinion and started with political or other controversial topics. Since then I could not stand them anymore because I get the impression that it seems to people as if they are still just portraying facts. It could be that they got better again but I stopped checking their videos so I wouldn't know about it.
I don't know if wikipedia is as bad as you say but since I mostly used it to look up some science related stuff or names, I doubt that there is much bias here.
That's a good point.
I've despised that channel from the very beginning. I saw a few videos that were narrated by Alain de Botton. Had bad vibes, so (ironically) looked up him on Wikipedia and learned he's a Cambridge academic.