this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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Announcing Ibis, the federated Wikipedia Alternative (ibis.wiki)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Good thing Wikipedia articles are always the best researched and sourced!

In 2023, Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein published an article in the Journal of Holocaust Research in which they said they had discovered a "systematic, intentional distortion of Holocaust history" on the English-language Wikipedia.[367] Analysing 25 Wikipedia articles and almost 300 back pages (including talk pages, noticeboards and arbitration cases), Grabowski and Klein stated they have shown how a small group of editors managed to impose a fringe narrative on Polish-Jewish relations, informed by Polish nationalist propaganda and far removed from evidence-driven historical research. In addition to the article on the Warsaw concentration camp, the authors conclude that the activities of the editors' group had an effect on several articles, such as History of the Jews in Poland, Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust and Jew with a coin. Nationalist editing on these and other articles allegedly included content ranging "from minor errors to subtle manipulations and outright lies", examples of which the authors offer.[367]

  • 367: Grabowski, Jan; Klein, Shira (February 9, 2023). "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 37 (2): 133–190. doi:10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939. ISSN 2578-5648. S2CID 257188267.
[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

So? Is your alternative free of mistakes and bias?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean, much more often than not, and for the majority of the time, they are.

What's the alternative you're suggesting that would be comparably comprehensive but regularly more reliable...?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I mean, much more often than not, and for the majority of the time, they are.

You don't see this statement as dogmatic? How do you feel confident in this other than just a feeling?

The majority of the time the articles would require actual expertise to make that evaluation with confidence. An individual can take a few minutes to verify the sources, but for so many topics it's not realistic to rule out omissions of sources that should be well-known, or even rule out that a source given provides an important broader context somewhere nearby that should be mentioned in the article but isn't. Can you be sure that the author is trustworthy on this subject? It's not enough to just check a single page mentioned in a book while ignoring the rest of the book and any context surrounding the author.

An expert on a very specialized topic could weigh with accuracy in on whether the wikipedia articles on their subject is well-researched and sourced, but that still won't mean they can extrapolate their conclusion to other articles.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

I don't think they're suggesting wikipedia currently is "best researched and sourced," just that a federated alternative wouldn't automatically solve that issue.