this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 weeks ago

lmao

One of the most accurate estimations it's made thus far though.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It hurt itself in its confusion

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

I see this as an absolute win

Next up just make the info glean-friendly

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

What does it say? I blocked that stupid bot ages ago.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

They added a line to the bot that includes Wikipedia’s stance on a source. And Wikipedia doesn’t consider MBFC to be reliable, so the bot reports that.

If you scroll below that, MBFC rates themselves as maximally reliable, which I’m sure is based off of a rigorous and completely neutral assessment.

Edit: although, reading the links in question they don’t seem to correspond to what the bot is saying. Perhaps this is some sort of mistake in how it was coded.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not a mistake, just confusing UX. The text in question comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBFC

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

It doesn’t though. Or at least, I didn’t see anything resembling that on that page. If you can find it, let me know. It’s possible I missed it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks, it seems to me like it should link here rather than to the main article.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

sorry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MBFC. that's what i get for attempting type a link out on mobile

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The post links both The Guardian and MBFC. The bot has picked up both links and posted the following (verbatim):


Media Bias/Fact Check - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:

Wiki: unreliable - There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site's ratings.


MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America


The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Guardian:

Wiki: reliable - There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. The Guardian's op-eds should be handled with WP:RSOPINION. Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics. See also: The Guardian blogs.
Wiki: mixed - Most editors say that The Guardian blogs should be treated as newspaper blogs or opinion pieces due to reduced editorial oversight. Check the bottom of the article for a "blogposts" tag to determine whether the page is a blog post or a non-blog article. See also: The Guardian.


MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom


Search topics on Ground.Newshttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/30/north-korea-troops-russia-kursk-ukraine-lloyd-austin
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/
Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 weeks ago

Interestingly enough, Wikipedia’s sourcing list counts Wikipedia as unreliable. It says you need to find information somewhere else so as not to create a self-referential loop. You have to justify it from a solid source that’s outside the system.

MBFC says that MBFC is incredibly reliable, and incidentally also tends to mark sources down if their biases don’t agree with MBFC’s existing biases, which are significant. It needs no outside sources, because it’s already reliable.

Good stuff.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Hahahah, so it's becoming self aware about how shit it is.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Personally, I'm just extremely irked that they refer to Wikipedia as "Wiki" when 1. that's not a proper noun 2. WP is right there

(don't swat my house with a slideshow, matt mullenweg, pretty please)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sure, use something that already stands for WordPress.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago

context matters

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Outstanding move

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Where’s the critique coming from? The Wiki seems to have nothing but positive things to say. Might be an error. Ironic.

Scientific studies[23] using its ratings note that ratings from Media Bias/Fact Check show high agreement with an independent fact checking dataset from 2017,[8] with NewsGuard[9] and with BuzzFeed journalists.[10] When MBFC factualness ratings of ‘mostly factual’ or higher were compared to an independent fact checking dataset's ‘verified’ and ‘suspicious’ news sources, the two datasets showed “almost perfect” inter-rater reliability.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It’s from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Media_Bias/Fact_Check

There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site's ratings.

I think the perennial sources list gets a lot more attention than the wiki page for MBFC itself, and probably the standards for judging it reliable are higher.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

I read that. My best guess is that this is either an error that hasn’t been updated in light of empirical studies corroborating MBFC’s reliability, or more likely any self-published list gets the “unreliable” sticker automatically.

Also, making claims about “a consensus” without sourcing these claims is mighty suspicious. Disappointed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're saying the parts mbfc uses other data from is fine, like the fact checking matching others as they all use the same source. But the rest like bias can't be trusted as it's just their own unscientific methods.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're not saying that. How did you summarize 23 words using 39 words, and get the summary wrong?

They're saying that there is no external professional vouching for MBFC's conclusions, which is their usual gold standard for things being "reliable." And that, on top of that, people within Wikipedia have specifically pointed out flaws with how MBFC does things, without any of the qualifications and categories that you added.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm trying to summarize the wiki reasoning/what's in the wiki page about mbfc criticisms

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Got it, that does make sense. You should know, though, that Wikipedia on the content side is a different thing from Wikipedia on the talk page side.

People can have nice things to say about a source in their Wikipedia page about the source, on the content side, while there’s still a consensus on the talk page side that the source is unreliable and shouldn’t be used for sourcing claims about other matters on other Wikipedia pages. The big table that I and someone else linked to are good summaries of the consensus on the talk page side, which is what’s most relevant here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A 2018 year-in-review and prospective on fact-checking from the Poynter Institute (which develops PolitiFact[27]) noted a proliferation of credibility score projects, including Media/Bias Fact Check, writing that "While these projects are, in theory, a good addition to the efforts combating misinformation, they have the potential to misfire," and stating that "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."[6] Also in 2018, a writer in the Columbia Journalism Review described Media Bias/Fact Check as "an armchair media analysis"[28] and characterized their assessments as "subjective assessments [that] leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in".[29] A study published in Scientific Reports wrote: "While [Media Bias/Fact Check's] credibility is sometimes questioned, it has been regarded as accurate enough to be used as ground-truth for e.g. media bias classifiers, fake news studies, and automatic fact-checking systems."[19]

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes! You have successfully found the content page. If only someone had kindly explained to you that there's a whole other side of Wikipedia which is more relevant to this discussion. It would have been nice for you to be able to have a whole patient explanation about how it all works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes! That is an extremely productive attitude when someone tries to explain to you how Wikipedia works, and then when you seem to miss the point, gets a little more pointed about it in hopes that you will pick it up and realize that you missed something, and learn a useful nugget of information relevant to our current discussion.

It seems you're happy with how much you already know, in life, because you are committed to not learning anything else beyond your present level of achievement. Congratulations! I hope this approach serves you well, and I look forward to seeing how much and how far you can get with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Treating others like a child and being a pedantic asshole will usually get you that response.

It's amazing how many words you use to also say nothing

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Actually: I changed my mind. I'm going to give this a real response.

I didn't treat you like a child. I explained what was going on, and you seem to have a mentality where someone who's explaining something to you that you don't know is "treating you like a child" or "being a pedantic asshole."

That's entirely on you. Most people, once they reach adulthood, are able to listen to something even if they don't already know it, able to learn from the world. I was a little bit snarky talking to you initially, but then I felt bad when I realized you just didn't know how Wikipedia worked, and were operating on some bad assumptions, but what you were thinking made actually perfect logical sense. Go back and read my "Got it, that does make sense" message. I read your message, I got where you were coming from, and like I said, I realized you just didn't know something, and I tried to help you understand it.

You have to let go of that mentality where someone who's telling you something you didn't already know is offensive, and you have to try to seize the upper hand and try to explain something back to them, or decide they're being a jerk or something or it needs to be a hostile interaction. That's going to make it impossible for you to learn. It also makes a lot of interactions more stressful than they need to be.

I realize that this whole message is explaining more stuff to you, which you probably won't react well to. But like I said, that's on you. If you were willing to absorb this, it would help you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Yes!

I said plenty, you just can't hear it. Oh well. I tried.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago

Tell me you have no idea how Wikipedia works, without telling me you have no idea.

You're putting trust in the stuff that doesn't mean very much, and "best guess"ing that the stuff that is dependable is not.