Posted on 11/10/2007 10:36:50 PM PST by Reform Canada
Edited on 11/11/2007 1:33:36 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Here is the FR thread on this subject dayglored:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1551483/posts
Accepted, no problem.
Point being, we on FR have to be at least as careful about checking on our information, as the thousands of folks who collectively edit Wikipedia. Inaccurate information is rampant on the internet.
Similarly, my regard for FR as an information source is based, not on the 95% of comments which express personal opinions and propagate rumors, but on the 5% who research what they have to say before they post it. Of course, FR is a forum with a point of view, and does not claim lack of bias.
In any event, regardless of what one is reading, skepticism is a good thing, IMO.
So why are there not enough conservative contributors to Wikipedia to offset the claimed bias? Has the conservative side abandoned the fight within Wikipedia just as it has abandoned the fight in the mass media?
If you’re not there, then that gives the field to the opposition.
I try, but I am only one against the leftist horde.
Hehe, you need to FORMAT my friend!
That said, Wikipedia must be taken the way any other source of information on the Internet is...with a grain of salt.
There is no "vetting" process for any information you see. If the site is reputable, it does make the information MORE reliable. For example, if you are looking for information on naval forces around the world,Janes Fighting Ships is considered to be reliable. The CIA Website might also be somewhat reliable.
But there are a host, thousands, perhaps millions of websites that have information any of us might use to buttress an argument or make a point. The vast majority of them are unreliable or unverifiable.
Just like the pre-Internet days...we MUST use our powers of discrimination to find reliable information.
Proven fact: it's easier to whine than do something about it.
I did some digging dayglored, and here is a quote from the wiki article on FR in 2005:
To: Maceman
> Well, here is what Wikipedia has to say about Free Republic. “The site is blocked by several leading child-protection filters due to allegations of hate speech regarding certain groups of people, such as liberals, homosexuals, and Muslims.” They left out the impeached POS :-)
15 posted on 10/24/2005 7:16:49 AM PDT by cloud8
Here is the racist portion:
Drudge dropped the link to Free Republic by February, 1999, “because they were doing racist stuff over the [Clinton love child][28].” Drudge currently does not link.
And here is the “modern” version of the fmr Wiki article:
“Salon.com’s Jeff Stein observed in 1999 that: “[A] swelling number of haters have turned up the volume of death threats, gay-bashing, name-calling and conspiracy theories tying the father of Republican front-runner George W. Bush to drug-dealing by the CIA.”[32]”
Fascinating stuff really, as long as the article about FR was allowed equal access to editing, then fair is fair.
Ah, that one, I remember that one.
There have been many such tempests in a teapot. What lqclamar didn't want to admit was that Wikipedia represents the collective knowledge of people who post to Wikipedia, not the world at large, etc. So OF COURSE it's going to have a somewhat left bias; why is that surprising?
That thread was REALLY about the fact that folks on FR mounted a campaign to "correct" other Wikipedia articles (not the one about Free Republic) in favor of a conservative bias instead of a liberal one:
"...a Free Republic Action Alert was distributed calling for a coordinated attack against several Wikipedia articles..."Is it any surprise that Wikipedia would resist an organized campaign of that nature, regardless of its leanings?
I mean, aren't we sort of famous for "FReeping That Poll" and so forth? ;-)
Many conservatives avoid it for exactly the same reasons they refuse to "Freep a Poll". They see it as a form of mental masturbation.
I like to use Wikipedia as a starting point for research...to find names, places and dates associated with particular events, and then I begin to comb the Internet for collaborating or contradictory evidence, and I examine the web sites to determine if they have an agenda to take into account.
Wikipedia is a website where ANYONE can edit and join. If you see inaccuracies, then correct them, and get others to help and correct them. If you give up you might as well declare that “reality has a liberal bias.”
And besides, no serious academic should use Wikipedia, anyways. As said before, it’s great as an introduction to things, but it’s best not to be overused. And it doesn’t just have a left-wing bias at times. Articles about subjects such as the Rape of Nanking or the Armenian Massacre are deeply divided between nationalistic sides. Such disputes transcend left-right divisions.
The liberal use of adjectives like amoral in describing neoconservatives (under conservative) was also unprofessional, and not worthy of an encyclopedic article.
Then I looked up Buddhism, and found the worst entry yet. it completely omitted the differing types of Buddhism and treated the religion as though it was homogeneous.
It completely omits all of Bob Dole’s political career saving his VP and Presidential bid, and that he was majority leader from 1995-1996. No mention that he was a County Attorney, a four term U.S. Congressman, and a senator from 1968 til 1996. No mention of the committees he served on, no mention of the committees he chaired, and nary a hint of how his various presidential bids went. All information readily available from Wiki.
Hell, conservapedia even somehow manages to omit that Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt!!! No mention of Iran Contra and how he was vindicated of accusations thereof.
Don’t even get me started on Conservapedia’s weak 539 word entry for quantum mechanics. Wiki’s entry is in excess of 6,000 words btw.
Sorry, but Conservapedia might be as conservative as all get out, but it’s so light on the pedia part that it’s a joke. Too much emphasis on ideology at the expense of information. As bad as Wiki may be, conservapedia can’t hold a candle to it.
Personally, I love Wikipedia.
But if I ever write a thesis I’ll be sure to use due diligence.
Agreed. Except that I find wiki quite useful at times. It’s especially handy at finding mathematical formulas all in one place. Lately, building a fence and a garden I’ve learned that my trig is beyond rusty, but I’ve been able to brush up on all the formulas I needed in minutes at the computer instead of digging through the closets for textbooks I might only think I still have.
... and those are all what OTHER people said about FR, not what Wikipedia claimed AS FACT, on the Free Republic page. Opinions are like a$$holes, everybody has one. But to address your items:
1. Child-protection filters block all sorts of information, like about breast and prostate cancer. They are utterly useless as a gauge of content. Wikipedia's comment was true (some child filters do/did block FR). So what?
2. The "racist" quote was from Drudge, not Wikipedia.
3. Quoting Jeff Stein of Salon.com doesn't mean a thing. (Salon? come on... the only more liberal site I can think of is Mother Jones...).
In other words, yes, what you offer is a set of OPINIONS about FR, quoted on Wikipedia. But none of it represents a non-NPOV on the part of Wikipedia, only of those mentioned in quotes. That's entirely unsurprising -- most Wikipedia pages about charged subjects have quotes.
Yea, but isn't it more fun to inject inaccuracies, especially funny or really devious ones?
Not if you are a communist. Jeez, what is with you?
STATEMENT FROM THE COUNCIL OF THE BIOLOGICAL
SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
The paper by Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” in vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, was published at the discretion of the former editor, Richard v. Sternberg. Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history. For the same reason, the journal will not publish a rebuttal to the thesis of the paper, the superiority of intelligent design (ID) over evolution as an explanation of the emergence of Cambrian body-plan diversity. The Council endorses a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml), which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity. Accordingly, the Meyer paper does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.
Wikipedia is a joke the first minute you get away from pure technical subjects. In other words, wiki is useful for thintgs like “how does a diesel locomotive engine work”, but that’s it; anything involving any sort of a science paradigm clash much less any sort of political question, leave them alone.
I find Wikipedia to be quite useful for a quick verification of a fact I recollect, and in locating information that is politically neutral.
In short, if Wikipedia jibes with my recollection, I generally don’t dig any deeper. If it doesn’t, I’ll keep looking.
I enjoy military history, and if you want to locate a quick order of battle, it can generally provide useful information.
Many of the pages also have links to other sources.
I’ve tried Conservapedia a few times, and have found it to be completely worthless. Perhaps it has gotten better. Or not. The Waterloo article is OK, but the World War I discussion pretty much ignores the Eastern front.
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