Academics have a duty to defend open knowledge systems like Wikipedia (blogs.lse.ac.uk)

36 pointsby jruohonen3 hours ago8 comments

10111001 40 minutes ago

> Just as academics must cite any AI-generated machine outputs they rely upon in their research and writing, they can also cite Wikipedia if they use it in their work. Doing so can highlight Wikipedia’s value to other academics as a source of knowledge and provide greater transparency in one’s research processes. Despite longstanding skepticism of Wikipedia among some scholars, citations to Wikipedia in academic journals appear to be increasing – even in high-impact publications in subject areas like the health sciences.

As someone who's contributed to Wikipedia and seen how the sausage is made: that's stupid. Even Wikipedia itself considers wikis (including itself) to lack sufficient authority to be cited as a source.

Such citations could be easily gamed (if you cite a particular change) or are useless (the content you cite may not be there in the future), and are obvious pathways to "citogenesis."

nradov 37 minutes ago

Something like Wikipedia is a wonderful idea in theory, but it's tough to defend when their policies allow factually incorrect content to remain just because it appears on a third-party source that the editors consider reliable. Most media sources contain a pretty high percentage of fake news and when this slop makes its way into Wikipedia that makes the problem even worse. Can we find a better solution?

bawolff 32 minutes ago

Philosiphers have been trying to work on how to define what is "True" since forever without much to show for it.

Wikipedia tries to kick the bucket by going with what "reliable" secondary sources say. Thus the goal is not to say the capital T Truth, but to essentially sumnarize academic knowledge.

To steal a saying - its the worst method except for every other known method.

If anyone has a better idea how to determine what is true and what isn't - i'd certainly be very interested.

okanat 8 minutes ago

Sorry but scientific method has been the default for "Truth" for many academic subjects. It is reliable and idempotent. If all of the human information and most of the knowledge workers are removed from the Earth tomorrow, many will arrive in the same conclusion in most of the natural sciences and maths. The language and representation will be different but prime numbers will still be prime numbers and the matter will still be made of one neutral and two "interactive" elements.

Social sciences like politics, history and economy are harder to replicate with the scientific method, however repeated observations, statiscial information as well as qualitative analysis with evidence-based research can still provide replicable analysis.

> If anyone has a better idea how to determine what is true and what isn't - i'd certainly be very interested

This kind of excuse is often cited to shut down any discussion, especially in history, politics and economics. I find it deeply anti-intellectual and dogmatic. As long as evidence and counter-evidence is followed, it should be possible to discuss alternative interpretations and solutions.

pazimzadeh 16 minutes ago

yeah and for some reason primary literature can't be used, except when it can, but review articles are allowed. makes no sense.

okanat 44 minutes ago

Open knowledge systems like Wikipedia are not really defensible. Letting anybody edit any page is a great way to get AI and human slop everywhere. It makes it extremely easy to insert knowledge with dubious quality and sources.

We need "open access" knowledge systems with known authors who are sponsored by non-profit and educational organizations and its their duty to defend their reputation.

Humanity needs more openly accessible curated and factually checked information and "open to modify" systems are bad at in all.

consumer451 32 minutes ago

Of course it has faults, but so did the Library of Alexandria. However, can anyone argue that Wikipedia is not our best attempt at collective facts?

Of course agreeing on collective facts is extremely messy.

Show me a better attempt, please.

nephihaha 40 minutes ago

Wikipedia has been the default result on Google for most things for years now.