Grants talk:IdeaLab/Eradicating Distrust

A certain amount of skepticism is healthy

Wikipedia is only as trustworthy as its sources, and then only if they have been used legitimately, so an important part of this project should be education on checking sources. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood:, yes a bit of "distrust" is healthy, as long as its also paired with literacy -- the information and skills needed to make that distrust constructive. For example, we share some of that information in a project for The Wikipedia Library on English Wikipedia: through a research help portal. There is a pretty robust conversation about Wikipedia as a good tool for information literacy (see for example, in the sources in this Zotero library). The goal that the idea promotor is proposing, creating a deeper conversation with educators, is not a challenge to this broader need for skepticism, but actually might make it more effective, in helping people use Wikipedia effectively, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Some feedback on this idea

Hi @Urshankov and Mahesh432: I think you have an interesting idea -- of workshopping directly with educators. We have a fair amount of experience doing this with the education program (see outreach:Education ). Based on what you know about what we have done, where would you focus the workshops? How would you plan on motivating educators to participate? Astinson (WMF) (talk) 15:10, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

"Reliable sources", cabals, junk

1) In English Wikipedia the corporate (usually US) media are (somehow) decreed to be reliable sources even though they are demonstrably consistently wrong or severely biased on certain subjects.

2) In controversial topics content is included or excluded by "consensus". This is a misnomer, it is actually by vote and there are organised efforts to win these votes. It is easy to see this going on if you read the talk pages.

3) There is a lot of content that does not meet official standards but you get into a big fight if you suggest deleting it. Instead you are told something like "Improve Wikipedia by providing sources". Well, there aren't any sources, this is just stuff somebody made up. Keith McClary (talk) 05:02, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I take it that your point is that Wikipedia is not trustworthy? Therefore there is no point in this proposal? Something else? Please be specific. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:28, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

@Keith McClary: Speaking as a regular editor for a moment, it sounds to me that you are referring to specific circumstances and drawing unsupported and broad conclusions about consensus, reliability, and content removal based on them, as though most decisions that get made by editors are nefarious, underhanded, and divisive. That conclusion strikes me as deeply sensationalized and unrealistic. I JethroBT (talk) 20:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: I've seen articles in the media about issues with Wikipedia. The idea of this project seems to be that we don't need to address these issues, we just need better PR. For a long time I have been trying to get an explanation of how the Bible qualifies as a historical source. We are only as trustworthy as our worst article. Keith McClary (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

1. Do you apply the same standard to other sources of information? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
2. Is this the same consistently wrong and severely biased media you mention in your first comment? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:34, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
3. The Bible was written as a record of what some people claimed to have happened. That makes it, by definition, a historical source. The question you should be asking is whether it could be considered a reliable historical source, which is another matter entirely. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
4. You appear to be assuming that the idea of the project is that we don't need to address the issues. How do you know this? What objective evidence do you have to support this opinion? (Note that I am not claiming that you are wrong, just that you make an apparently unsupported claim) · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)