[WikiEN-l] Re: Anti-scientific bias has me hopping mad!

Tue Oct 7 21:59:13 UTC 2003

Ed Poor wrote-
> I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the
> scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by
> slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm
> outnumbered and outgunned.

Welcome to the club, Ed.  Let's call it the club of people frustrated 
with ''inclusivity bias''.  You're in good company here, so put up your 
feet and have the barmaid bring you a glass of good [[Scotch]].

You have hit upon the number one reason why good, evenhanded 
contributors leave the Wiki, and why many of those who stay become 
frustrated and limit their edits to mechanical changes and work on a few 
pet subject areas.  It is also the reason why most credentialled people 
have left the project.

''Inclusivity bias'' is my term for the pattern of putting the [[burden 
of proof]] on editors making content changes in broad areas.  The 
trouble is that the Wikipedia culture is deletion-adverse and 
reversion-adverse.  Wikipedia culture is to include things until they 
are proven unmeritous.  If you cut paragraphs, revert bad edits to an 
article, or try to have an article deleted--unless you have proof, you 
get NO support from the community.

And you need that community support, because you are up against people 
with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a certain way.  You 
mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the many areas where 
this is a problem.  The Isreal/Palestine issues, articles on different 
religions, articles on cults, politics, and world trade all have the 
same problem.

I think the culture has to change.  I don't know how to do it.  I've 
tried, and it is *excruciatingly* hard to walk into an article that has 
bias, that clearly has a problem with facts and with neutrality, and 
accomplish anything good.  The usual outcome is outpouring of anger, 
edit wars, and hard feelings all around, and the well-meaning editor 
just ends up making enemies.  What *should* happen, is that the 
community should rise up and *support* people who are trying to help out 
in these situations.

What kind of support?  Well, people should be rushing to your side to 
reinstate your edits when some POV writer keeps reverting you.  Other 
people should be coming to the discussion, and not just adding and 
refactoring ad nauseum, but actually trying to push the process towards 
a decision.  What we need more of are editors who are willing to 
approach a controversial topic that they don't feel strongly about, and 
staying there with tenacity, requiring sources for questionable edits, 
flat-out reverting inappropriate garbage, and doing their own 
cross-checking.

This is all going to get worse as Wikipedia becomes more important in 
the real world.  When its #90 at alexa.com, you can bet that somebody 
from Monsanto and somebody from Greenpeace will both be here trying to 
steer the articles around on GM food.

Louis