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==Structural problems with Wikipedia==

==Structural problems with Wikipedia==

Wikipedia claims to be "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit."  That is both its strength and its biggest weakness.  Although Wikipedia started as having all editors on an equal footing, it has evolved into a highly stratified structure where a large number of people cannot edit it.  In order to edit Wikipedia, a person must master its wiki-markup language and a large number of complex rules.  The number of people who edit Wikipedia on a regular basis has declined.  Many editors left voluntarily, but many others have been "banned" or "blocked" by administrators or a community vote.  In theory, people can edit Wikipedia without logging in, but in order to prevent "banned" users from editing, Wikipedia blocks various ranges of IP addresses, preventing persons who are '''not''' banned from editing from those locations, such as hotels, schools and libraries.  Wikipedia's terms and conditions bar people with a conflict of interest from directly editing Wikipedia article.  This prevents knowledgeable people who work for companies from editing article relating to their work.  Finally, because the administrator caste has certain political views, editors who do not conform to those beliefs are more likely to be "banned" or "blocked".

Wikipedia claims to be "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit."  That is both its strength and its biggest weakness.  Although Wikipedia started as having all editors on an equal footing, it has evolved into a highly stratified structure where a large number of people cannot edit it.  In order to edit Wikipedia, a person must master its wiki-markup language and a large number of complex rules.  The number of people who edit Wikipedia on a regular basis has declined.  Many editors left voluntarily, but many others have been "banned" or "blocked" by administrators or a community vote.  In theory, people can edit Wikipedia without logging in, but in order to prevent "banned" users from editing, Wikipedia blocks various ranges of IP addresses, preventing persons who are '''not''' banned from editing from those locations, such as hotels, schools and libraries.  Wikipedia's terms and conditions bar people with a conflict of interest from directly editing Wikipedia article.  This prevents knowledgeable people who work for companies from editing articles relating to their work.  Finally, because the administrator caste has certain political views, editors who do not conform to those beliefs are more likely to be "banned" or "blocked".

A major source of bias comes from the Wikipedia pillar of "verifiability." Wikipedia proudly proclaims, "'''Verifiability, and not truth''', is one of the fundamental requirements for inclusion in Wikipedia;"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&oldid=502902820|title=WP:Verifiability|accessdate=July 19, 2012}}</ref>  There have been many attempts to change this because when a Wikipedia editor tries to remove false content, editors who favor biased content rely upon this policy to retain the falsehoods.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability/2012_RfC</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_53#RFC_-_Compromise_proposal_re_first_sentence</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/27_February_2012/Wikipedia:Verifiability</ref> An example of such misuse involve radical feminists who tried to have Wikipedia state that netball was an Olympic sport<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement&oldid=420754256|title=Netball at the Olympics|date=March 26, 2011|author=Laura Hale}}</ref> when in fact it has never been played "at the Olympics." Because they found a speech where a politician told the New South Wales Parliament that netball was "technically an Olympic sport"<ref>Parliament of New South Wales, [http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20040921018 Parliamentary Debates,] Legislative Assembly, 21 September 2004, columns 11179–11179, (Alison Megarrity).</ref> they were able to retain this false material as if it were a verified fact.

A major source of bias comes from the Wikipedia pillar of "verifiability".  Wikipedia proudly proclaims, "'''Verifiability, and not truth''', is one of the fundamental requirements for inclusion in Wikipedia;"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&oldid=502902820|title=WP:Verifiability|accessdate=July 19, 2012}}</ref>  There have been many attempts to change this, because when a Wikipedia editor tries to remove false content, editors who favor biased content rely upon this policy to retain the falsehoods.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability/2012_RfC</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_53#RFC_-_Compromise_proposal_re_first_sentence</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/27_February_2012/Wikipedia:Verifiability</ref> An example of such misuse involve radical feminists who tried to have Wikipedia state that netball was an Olympic sport<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement&oldid=420754256|title=Netball at the Olympics|date=March 26, 2011|author=Laura Hale}}</ref> when, in fact, it has never been played "at the Olympics". Because they found a speech where a politician told the New South Wales Parliament that netball was "technically an Olympic sport"<ref>Parliament of New South Wales, [http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20040921018 Parliamentary Debates,] Legislative Assembly, 21 September 2004, columns 11179–11179, (Alison Megarrity).</ref> they were able to retain this false material as if it were a verified fact.

Requiring just one source to meet Wikipedia's verifiability standard is a serious logical flaw.  Any well-established fact can be contradicted by finding one obscure source somewhere on the web, and Wikipedia will allow just one reference to overrule the majority of definitive sources saying the opposite.

Requiring just one source to meet Wikipedia's verifiability standard is a serious logical flaw.  Any well-established fact can be contradicted by finding one obscure source somewhere on the Web, and Wikipedia will allow just one reference to overrule the majority of definitive sources saying the opposite.

Another bias is from "show and tell."  Some Wikipedia editors have not outgrown their need to show off what they have found on the Internet.  Again using the obscure sport of netball as an example, the editor found a photo posted on flickr that was labeled, "The Girls Netball Team"<ref>https://www.flickr.com/photos/51132506@N00/1954358144</ref> even though it did not show anyone playing netball.  The editor then captioned the photo, "A Malawian netball team" and placed it alongside a few other obscure facts to create a Malawi section of the netball article.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Netball&oldid=420915334</ref> So how can the reader trust that the people in the photograph are really in Malawi and that they really play netball?<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Netball_in_Africa#Malawi_image</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Netball/Archive_3#Should_image_of_Netball_players_not_playing_be_used</ref>  Adding photos to articles is the most visible form of the "show and tell" syndrome.  The need to "show and tell" can also result in including random, obscure facts and data in an article.  For example, an editor can find a data source from years ago, but if the data are included in the article without proper emphasis of the date, it creates the implication that the data remain true today.<ref>E.g., {{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Netball_in_Brunei&diff=502678275&oldid=502670120|title=Netball in Brunei|date=July 16, 2012}}</ref>

Another bias is from "show and tell."  Some Wikipedia editors have not outgrown their need to show off what they have found on the Internet.  Again using the obscure sport of netball as an example, the editor found a photo posted on flickr that was labeled, "The Girls Netball Team"<ref>https://www.flickr.com/photos/51132506@N00/1954358144</ref> even though it did not show anyone playing netball.  The editor then captioned the photo, "A Malawian netball team" and placed it alongside a few other obscure facts to create a Malawi section of the netball article.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Netball&oldid=420915334</ref> So how can the reader trust that the people in the photograph are really in Malawi and that they really play netball?<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Netball_in_Africa#Malawi_image</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Netball/Archive_3#Should_image_of_Netball_players_not_playing_be_used</ref>  Adding photos to articles is the most visible form of the "show and tell" syndrome.  The need to "show and tell" can also result in including random, obscure facts and data in an article.  For example, an editor can find a data source from years ago, but if the data are included in the article without proper emphasis of the date, it creates the implication that the data remain true today.<ref>E.g., {{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Netball_in_Brunei&diff=502678275&oldid=502670120|title=Netball in Brunei|date=July 16, 2012}}</ref>

Errors and bias can be introduced by robotic submissions.  For example, many Wikipedia articles about populated places in the United States were created by robots using 2000 census data. A standard paragraph on demographics that included 2000 data was automatically included in each article. Wikipedia has not been able to program a robot to update all of those statistics, so most articles about places in the United States do not have more recent data from the 2010 census.  Robots tagged many Wikipedia articles that had an article name in common with those in an early edition of ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as having that book as a source, even if nothing in the article was based on that book, and no human checked if the Wikipedia article was consistent with the Encyclopædia Britannica article.

Errors and bias can be introduced by robotic submissions.  For example, many Wikipedia articles about populated places in the United States were created by robots using 2000 United States Census data. A standard paragraph on demographics that included 2000 Census data were automatically included in each article. Wikipedia has not been able to program a robot to update all of those statistics, so most articles about places in the United States do not have more recent data from the 2010 census.  Robots tagged many Wikipedia articles that had an article name in common with those in an early edition of ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as having that book as a source, even if nothing in the article was based on that book, and no human checked if the Wikipedia article was consistent with the Encyclopædia Britannica article.

Another level of error and bias comes from Wikipedia's reliance on poorly-trained volunteers instead of paid professionals.  For example, someone proposed that a copyrighted photo of Joseph Stalin taken by [[Margaret Bourke-White]] be deleted in 2009.<ref>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Joseph_Stalin.jpg</ref> It was kept, because someone with a Gmail account sent permission claiming to be her son.  She died without children<ref>http://womenshistory.about.com/od/margaretbourkewhite/a/Margaret-Bourke-White.htm</ref> and the photo's copyright actually belonged to Time, Inc., but the mistake was not detected until 2012.

Another level of error and bias comes from Wikipedia's reliance on poorly-trained volunteers, instead of paid professionals.  For example, someone proposed that a copyrighted photo of Joseph Stalin taken by [[Margaret Bourke-White]] be deleted in 2009.<ref>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Joseph_Stalin.jpg</ref> It was kept, because someone with a Gmail account sent permission claiming to be her son.  She died without children<ref>http://womenshistory.about.com/od/margaretbourkewhite/a/Margaret-Bourke-White.htm</ref> and the photo's copyright actually belonged to Time, Inc., but the mistake was not detected until 2012.

===Accountability===

===Accountability===