How horrible is Wikipedia really? (concrete examples, please)

[FXMastermind]

That very well may be true. At least Wikipedia has the possibility of being correct.

[Musicat]

@Little_Nemo

I once got into a dispute about what color a bridge was. For some reason, one person had posted that the bridge was orange. I said this was wrong and that the bridge in question was green. I was told I had to provide an online cite for my claim. I said that I lived a few blocks from the bridge and I could see it by looking out my bedroom window. But this was not an online cite. This is an example of a dispute over an objective fact where somebody who knew what they were talking about was unable to prove their statement. (I was reminded of this because of the recent “what color is this dress?” issue. I could see the bridge in real life. But most people could only see it in photographs. And in some photographs it does look a shade of reddish brown.)

I’ve had some problems like this. If I had been in your shoes, I’d take a picture and post it on web page somewhere. Then you can cite the web page. This works best if the web page URL doesn’t look like it is associated with you.

That’s my main beef with WP – sometimes I am the expert they wish they had, but they won’t take my word for it unless I have a published paper on the subject.

I’ve never been reversed or had anything deleted that I edited, with about 50 edits to my name. But most are trivial, like grammar fixes. Apparently cites for correct grammar are not needed.

[FXMastermind]

When some asshat on Wikipedia doesn’t “like” an article, and clearly there are plenty of valid sources for it, they will delete it based on “it’s not notable”, when all else fails.

I’m not kidding. The effort spent on getting rid of actual facts there is enormous. Only the “right kind of facts” are allowable. This is true even when it’s not a contentious subject.

But very much so if it in any way offends somebody who is always on Wikipedia. Editing your shit.

[wolfpup]

@Blake

From a current GQ thread.

What Wikipedia says:

“1,600 deaths were related to the evacuation or its consequences” of the Fukushima nuclear accident.What the atcual source says: 1,612 deaths in the Fukushima prefecture “off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake”.

What English language translations say: the total death toll from the *tsunami *in Fukusihma prefecture was 1, 612, with no attempt to split those into deaths caused by drowning, building collapse etc. and deaths related to the nuclear accident.

(Emphasis mine.)
And yet, far from denying the bolded part, the very next sentence in the Wikipedia article emphasizes exactly that point:
The exact cause of the majority of these evacuation-related deaths were unspecified because that would hinder the deceased relatives’ application for financial compensation.[16][17] The World Health Organization indicated that evacuees were exposed to so little radiation that radiation-induced health impacts are likely to be below detectable levels,[18] and that any additional cancer risk from radiation was small—extremely small, for the most part—and chiefly limited to those living closest to the nuclear power plant.[19]

@Blake

But as I said earlier, one of the problems with **Wolfpup **'s definition is that whenever these sorts of examples are brought up on these sorts of boards, somebody runs in and makes the appropriate changes, so that the error ceases to exist, at least briefly. So Wikipedia champions like **Wolfpup ** then get to claim that the error wasn’t “long term” even though it existed for over a decade. And then the next time it gets discussed we have to go to the effort of finding more long-term errors, which are corrected by the champions in the discussion. And then the exact same subject is brought up next time.

Which is why I asked **Wolfpup ** to clearly define what they mean by important fact, important topic and permanently entrenched. But he simply refused to answer the question.

I don’t recall refusing to answer any question of yours, though I may have missed it. Let me address these points now.

1. I am not a “Wikipedia champion” and have no reason to be. I have made only very minor contributions, one of which was reversed due to being insufficiently cited even though it was correct, so if anything I have reason to be mildly annoyed at them.

2. I therefore came into this discussion from a completely neutral position, as one who has occasionally used Wikipedia as a casual reference and occasionally browsed its material on subjects that I know something about, and generally found it reliable. Every reference work will inevitably have mistakes, so the useful question becomes whether they are sufficiently few or sufficiently minor that the reference work can generally be relied upon for most purposes of everyday reference. This is the question that we’re trying to address here.

3. If I seem to be defending Wikipedia, it’s because with respect to the question in #2, I’ve observed as this thread has progressed that more and more claims are being made about Wikipedia’s alleged inaccuracies, but most of the claims being made are vague and unsubstantiated and therefore unpersuasive. Show me where it’s wrong or exhibiting a persistent bias on significant major issues and I’ll be the first to say, yeah, this thing is a piece of crap. I have no dog in this race. But I have yet to see it. The closest I’ve seen to a demonstrable factual error so far is the matter of the Lincoln Highway mentioned earlier, described in one secondary article as going through 14 states instead of 13 (though it’s correct in the main article), which I’d regard as a minor error whose origins are understandable, for the reasons previously discussed.

4. As for the accusation that I and “other champions of Wikipedia” immediately rushed over and corrected any errors that were cited here, I can only speak for myself, and I have not done so, nor had the slightest interest in doing so. I’m amused that anyone would think I care.

[Cugel]

@FXMastermind

When some asshat on Wikipedia doesn’t “like” an article, and clearly there are plenty of valid sources for it, they will delete it based on “it’s not notable”, when all else fails.

Which might lead to the disgruntled party pointing out the innumerable other useless articles - can’t have that so there’s this

Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

@Musicat

That’s my main beef with WP – sometimes I am the expert they wish they had, but they won’t take my word for it unless I have a published paper on the subject.

And then we have the opposite, where a cite is often someone offhandedly expressing an opinion in an obscure newspaper/website.

[FXMastermind]

@Lochdale

For the most part, Wikipedia is a terrific starting point for, well pretty much anything.

Except for when it’s not.

The example of a complete lack of an article for “global warming theory”, or any other name for it, is quite telling. While the term is used hundreds of times in other articles, you won’t find any article explaining, much less defining, what many consider the most important issue facing mankind.

Any article that even mentions the theory, might be deleted, renamed, or somehow changed, so that there is never a link or definition of the theory.

Even a list of scientist opposed to the theory won’t be allowed. Note who deleted the page. He is well known for deleting thousands of edits, and banning many thousands of members who opposed his obvious agenda.

Any article that would normally, in a sane world, be about the theory, gets redirected to the idiot page that doesn’t even include the word theory. Much less does the page define or explain the theory.

It’s not just awful, it’s godawful.

[Ruken]

@FXMastermind

Except for when it’s not.

I have found Wikipedia to be a terrific starting point for learning about global warming.

@FXMastermind

The example of a complete lack of an article for “global warming theory”, or any other name for it, is quite telling. While the term is used hundreds of times in other articles, you won’t find any article explaining, much less defining, what many consider the most important issue facing mankind.

It’s used only hundreds of times. Doesn’t sound like a big deal to me.

[FXMastermind]

@Ruken

It’s used only hundreds of times. Doesn’t sound like a big deal to me.

Of course, of course. The biggest issue facing mankind is used all the time, but it’s never defined or explained. No problem.

[Ruken]

Looks good to me! Thank you for allaying all our worries.

[BigT]

@FXMastermind

Of course, of course. The biggest issue facing mankind is used all the time, but it’s never defined or explained. No problem.

What are you talking about? The entire theory is described in the article. Of course there are not two separate articles for global warming and global warming theory. They are the same thing. You just want “theory” added to push your own POV, when that is not the common name. It’d be like arguing that there should be both a relativity and Theory of Relativity article.

And of course a list of scientists that don’t support global warming is going to be deleted. There’s nothing encyclopedic about that. The best you could do is create a category listing prominent critics of the theory that have their own articles.

The main problems with Wikipedia are a bias against expertise and lax enforcement of policies like WP:OWN or personal attack rules that lead to problems not being fixed. There are policies that could fix all the problems mentioned in this thread, if you could get them enforced. Instead you have to wage a sort of policy war, where you point out how your policies allow you to do what you want to do. Newbies can’t compete.

But you aren’t doing yourself any favors if you don’t even know how deletion policy works. The admins do the deletion, and the policy for why they can delete is actually pretty rigorously followed. Prove notability by finding a bunch of reliable sources talking about it. Prove verifiability by showing multiple reliable sources saying the same thing. And, yes, what is a reliable source is pretty well defined.

Getting articles made is actually fairly easy. It’s changing long established articles that is hard.

[FXMastermind]

@BigT

What are you talking about? The entire theory is described in the article.

If that were true, you could simply quote it.

@BigT

Of course there are not two separate articles for global warming and global warming theory. They are the same thing.

It’s that there is no definition, or explanation of the theory, that is the point.

@BigT

It’d be like arguing that there should be both a relativity and Theory of Relativity article.

That’s a good example. What is the theory of relativity?

General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915[1] and the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalizes special relativity and Newton’s law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations.

Some predictions of general relativity differ significantly from those of classical physics, especially concerning the passage of time, the geometry of space, the motion of bodies in free fall, and the propagation of light.

General relativity - Wikipedia

The word theory appears 106 times, unlike the global warming article, that only mentions the word once in regards to conspiracy theory.

So if you want to understand the theory of relativity, from Einstein, no problem.

But basic global warming theory? Forget about it on Wikipedia.

It’s like looking for info on Newton’s law gravity, and there is only an article on gravity, that never mentions the word Law even once. Or Newton.

You would say that is horrible.

[GIGObuster]

:rolleyes:

Read post #114 again, what is horrible is not taking into account that AGW is a complex theory with many auxiliary hypotheses, it is a very simplistic view to think that just missing a line of text will negate paragraphs of explanations and links.

No wonder the tactics to disparage what scientists or encyclopedia contributors do have a lot in common with what the tobacco industry did to seed doubts about the connections with tobacco smoke and cancer, like in that case the contrarians do press the point that there is not a simple explanation for the mechanics of how tobacco causes cancer or many other diseases.

[FXMastermind]

The unintentional humor here is amazing.

@BigT

Of course there are not two separate articles for global warming and global warming theory. They are the same thing.

It’s like claiming the “theory of the ice ages” is the same thing as an ice age. Why should there be an article and definition of the theory of ice ages? They are the same thing.

But, if the global warming page contain the theory, just quote it. Like I did with the theory of relativity.

This is as concrete example as you can find. because there is no way anyone arguing here could actually do anything about it. You can’t add “the enhanced greenhouse theory”, “the carbon dioxide theory”, the “CO2 theory”, the “AGW theory”, or as Plass named it, “the carbon dioxide theory of climate change” to Wikipedia.

That’s what makes it so horrible.

[Lobohan]

@FXMastermind

The unintentional humor here is amazing.

It’s like claiming the “theory of the ice ages” is the same thing as an ice age. Why should there be an article and definition of the theory of ice ages? They are the same thing.

But, if the global warming page contain the theory, just quote it. Like I did with the theory of relativity.

This is as concrete example as you can find. because there is no way anyone arguing here could actually do anything about it. You can’t add “the enhanced greenhouse theory”, “the carbon dioxide theory”, the “CO2 theory”, the “AGW theory”, or as Plass named it, “the carbon dioxide theory of climate change” to Wikipedia.

That’s what makes it so horrible.

So what you want is some pithy one paragraph definition?

The fact that you’re hung up on this illustrates that you have absolutely zero idea of how complex the issue is. No one is dipping litmus paper into a solution and saying, “Voila, Global Warming!” as it discolors.

I get that this is how you’ve structured your denial of the facts in your own head, it’s how you maintain your dedication against the facts in the face of overwhelming evidence. “Well, there is no page with a one paragraph summation of climate change THAT SUITS MY PARTICULAR WANTS, so it’s bunk!” No matter what the vast majority of scientists think, you convince yourself you’re correct because your goofy little gotcha is better than thousands of experts.

The experts have looked at it. They examine the data. They come to a conclusion. Not just one or two. Thousands. Across the world. Across political affiliation.

But FX, working alone has proven them all wrong!

[Bryan_Ekers]

I though global warming was a fake - that government guy had a snowball and everything!

[wolfpup]

@Lobohan

So what you want is some pithy one paragraph definition?

The fact that you’re hung up on this illustrates that you have absolutely zero idea of how complex the issue is.

The insistence on finding a sequence of specific words or a specific phrase that he has made up appears to be a standard argumentative tactic employed by FX that I’ve encountered many times when he engages in global warming denialism. Here is a recent example, where his claimed inability to find the exact phrase “water vapor is a feedback loop” apparently means that this fundamental concept in climate change must be false, a claim that he indeed explicitly asserted several times in the past. Although actually there are of course thousands of hits on those keywords.

@Lobohan

I get that this is how you’ve structured your denial of the facts in your own head, it’s how you maintain your dedication against the facts in the face of overwhelming evidence. “Well, there is no page with a one paragraph summation of climate change THAT SUITS MY PARTICULAR WANTS, so it’s bunk!” No matter what the vast majority of scientists think, you convince yourself you’re correct because your goofy little gotcha is better than thousands of experts.

The experts have looked at it. They examine the data. They come to a conclusion. Not just one or two. Thousands. Across the world. Across political affiliation.

But FX, working alone has proven them all wrong!

Having read his numerous postings on the subject of climate change I will respectfully suggest that **FX **would be well served by reading Wikipedia and learning from it instead of criticizing it. Or reading any other reference work or basic textbook on the subject.

[FXMastermind]

@Ruken

I have found Wikipedia to be a terrific starting point for learning about global warming.

And yet, in a perfect concrete example of Wikipedia being horrible, you can’t find the basic global warming theory described there, much less explained, and the people responsible for the theory credited.

That is actually hard to believe, but it’s exactly the case at the moment.

[FXMastermind]

An actual climate scientist, or anyone who has studied the matter, can explain the theory in a few paragraphs, in a way most people can understand it.

Global warming theory starts with the assumption that the Earth naturally maintains a constant average temperature, which is the result of a balance between (1) the amount of sunlight the Earth absorbs, and (2) the amount of emitted infrared (“IR”) radiation that the Earth continuously emits to outer space. In other words, energy in equals energy out. Averaged over the whole planet for 1 year, those energy flows in and out of the climate system are estimated to be around 235 or 240 watts per square meter.

Greenhouse components in the atmosphere (mostly water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide, and methane) exert strong controls over how fast the Earth loses IR energy to outer space. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels creates more atmospheric carbon dioxide. As we add more CO2, more infrared energy is trapped, strengthing the Earth’s greenhouse effect. This causes a warming tendency in the lower atmosphere and at the surface. As of 2008, it is believed that we have enhanced the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect by about 1%.

Global warming theory says that the lower atmosphere must then respond to this energy imbalance (less IR radiation being lost than solar energy being absorbed) by causing an increase in temperature (which causes an increase in the IR escaping to space) until the emitted IR radiation once again equals the amount of absorbed sunlight. That is, the Earth must increase its temperature until global energy balance is once again restored. This is the basic explanation of global warming theory.

GW 101 « Roy Spencer, PhD

The rest of the theory, as well as assumptions used to program computer models, that gets more complicated, but it’s still something an encyclopedia with unlimited space could explain, illustrate and expound upon with ease.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

An actual climate scientist, or anyone who has studied the matter, can explain the theory in a few paragraphs, in a way most people can understand it. GW 101 « Roy Spencer, PhD

The rest of the theory, as well as assumptions used to program computer models, that gets more complicated, but it’s still something an encyclopedia with unlimited space could explain, illustrate and expound upon with ease.

Spencer is just about one of the worst scientists to point out in this issue, if that is the one scientists that the critics of Wikipedia are point at when making articles then it is not wonder that as a cite he is not seen as valid in Wikipedia regarding this issue.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/07/29/282584/climate-scienists-debunk-latest-bunk-by-denier-roy-spencer/

To understand this paper, you have to understand the difference, between a “forcing” and a “feedback.” Forcings are imposed changes to, the climate, while feedbacks are processes that respond to changes in, the climate and amplify or ameliorate them. So the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by humans is a forcing—it is simply an imposition on the climate. Water vapor, on the other hand, is a feedback because the amount of water vapor is set by the surface temperature of the planet. As the planet warms, you get more water vapor in the atmosphere, and since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, this leads to additional warming.

The canonical way to think about clouds is that they are a feedback—as the climate warms, clouds will change in response and either amplify, (positive cloud feedback) or ameliorate (negative cloud feedback) the initial change.

What this new paper is arguing is that clouds are forcing the climate, rather than the more traditional way of thinking of them as a feedback. This is not, in fact, a new argument. Spencer’s 2010 JGR, paper as well as the new Lindzen and Choi 2011 paper both make this argument.

Overall, the argument made in all of these papers to support the conjecture that clouds are forcing the climate (rather than a feedback) is extremely weak. What they do is show some data, then they show a very simple model with some free parameters that they tweak until they fit the data. They then conclude that their model is right. However, if the underlying model is wrong, then the agreement between the model and data proves nothing.

I am working on a paper that will show that, if you look carefully at the magnitudes of the individual terms of their model, the model is obviously wrong. In fact, if Spencer were right, then clouds would be a major cause of El Niño cycles—which we know is not correct. Talk to any ENSO expert and tell them that clouds cause ENSO and they’ll laugh, at you.

Finally, the best way to put Roy’s paper into context it is to recognize how Roy views his job: “I would wager that my job has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism. I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.” (he wrote that on his blog).

Thus, his paper is not really intended for other scientists, since they do not take him seriously anymore (he’s been wrong too many times). Rather, he’s writing his papers for Fox News, the editorial board of the Wall St. Journal, Congressional staffers, and the blogs. These are his audience and the people for whom this research is actually useful — in stopping policies to reduce GHG emissions — which is what Roy wants.

-Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University.

Having seen how sorry the science of Spencer is, then one has to look from where he is coming from:

Roy Spencer

Spencer is affiliated with a number of astroturf and Christian fundamentalist organizations. He is a member of the George C. Marshall Institute, which was founded by expert for hire Frederick Seitz and is a think tank and front group for various corporate interests including oil companies. He also makes the rounds at the Heartland Institute’s denialist conferences.[20]

The fundamentalist organizations he has worked with include the Cornwall Alliance and the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA), which reorganized into the Cornwall Alliance in 2006. The organization promotes “Bible-based environmental stewardship,” which translates to “a bunch of cranks denying science.” He helped the ISA author their “Call to Truth,” a denialist manifesto for evangelicals.[21][22]

As is common amongst cranks, Spencer flaunts his credentials at every turn. His website is called www.drroyspencer.com and is entitled “Roy Spencer, Ph.D.” Contrast this with the scientists at realclimate.org, who go by names like “Gavin” and "Mike.

[FXMastermind]

Of course none of that deals with the complete lack of “The greenhouse warming theory” on Wikipedia.

The greenhouse warming theory found a lone advocate. In 1938 an English engineer, Guy Stewart Callendar, tried to revive the old idea.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#S2

Or what hansen calls “the CO2 theory”.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~davidc/ATMS211/articles_optional/Hansen81_CO2_Impact.pdf

It’s also called the “Callendar effect”, which is yet another name for the theory, which no longer appears on Wikipedia, but of course it once did.

His main contribution to knowledge was developing the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to global temperature. This theory, earlier proposed by Svante Arrhenius,[1] has been called the Callendar effect

Guy Stewart Callendar - Wikipedia

As I said, it’s a concrete example of when Wikipedia can be horrible. While Spencer has no trouble explaining the theory, it never is explained on Wikipedia, under any name. Even the original name, the “greenhouse-effect theory” has no article. It doesn’t even appear on the article for Arrhenius! How is that even possible? The name “greenhouse effect theory” isn’t some obscure misunderstood term.

Same for Hansen’s use of the “CO2 theory”. Yet they simply do not have an article, not even a redirect to the global warming theory. Remember, the word theory does not even appear in the global warming article there.

It’s much strange.

Even more so the furious tap dancing that happens when you simply point this fact out.