[Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions

[Achal Prabhala]

There's an interesting article out in the current issue of the Chronicle:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/

It's behind a paywall, but in the spirit of fair use and in keeping with 
the author's intent (the article is on Wikipedia, and I believe the 
author would want to have us discuss it) I reproduce it here:


  The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia

By Timothy Messer-Kruse

For the past 10 years I've immersed myself in the details of one of the 
most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and 
trial of 1886. Along the way I've written two books and a couple of 
articles about the episode. In some circles that affords me a 
presumption of expertise on the subject. Not, however, on Wikipedia.

The bomb thrown during an anarchist rally in Chicago sparked America's 
first Red Scare, a high-profile show trial, and a worldwide clemency 
movement for the seven condemned men. Today the martyrs' graves are a 
national historic site, the location of the bombing is marked by a 
public sculpture, and the event is recounted in most American history 
textbooks. Its Wikipedia entry is detailed and elaborate.

A couple of years ago, on a slow day at the office, I decided to 
experiment with editing one particularly misleading assertion chiseled 
into the Wikipedia article. The description of the trial stated, "The 
prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting 
any of the defendants with the bombing. ... "

Coincidentally, that is the claim that initially hooked me on the topic. 
In 2001 I was teaching a labor-history course, and our textbook 
contained nearly the same wording that appeared on Wikipedia. One of my 
students raised her hand: "If the trial went on for six weeks and no 
evidence was presented, what did they talk about all those days?" I've 
been working to answer her question ever since.

I have not resolved all the mysteries that surround the bombing, but I 
have dug deeply enough to be sure that the claim that the trial was 
bereft of evidence is flatly wrong. One hundred and eighteen witnesses 
were called to testify, many of them unindicted co-conspirators who 
detailed secret meetings where plans to attack police stations were 
mapped out, coded messages were placed in radical newspapers, and bombs 
were assembled in one of the defendants' rooms.

In what was one of the first uses of forensic chemistry in an American 
courtroom, the city's foremost chemists showed that the metallurgical 
profile of a bomb found in one of the anarchists' homes was unlike any 
commercial metal but was similar in composition to a piece of shrapnel 
cut from the body of a slain police officer. So overwhelming was the 
evidence against one of the defendants that his lawyers even admitted 
that their client spent the afternoon before the Haymarket rally 
building bombs, arguing that he was acting in self-defense.

So I removed the line about there being "no evidence" and provided a 
full explanation in Wikipedia's behind-the-scenes editing log. Within 
minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: "You must provide 
reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines 
to the article."

That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, 
including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the 
Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. 
One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of 
history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site's "undue weight" policy, which 
states that "articles should not give minority views as much or as 
detailed a description as more popular views." He then scolded me. "You 
should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to 
replace it with a minority view."

The "undue weight" policy posed a problem. Scholars have been publishing 
the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The 
last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries.

"Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side 
would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one?" I asked the 
Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, "You're more than welcome to discuss 
reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you 
might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy."

I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my 
citations to the primary documents were insufficient, as Wikipedia 
requires its contributors to rely on secondary sources, or, as my critic 
informed me, "published books." Another editor cheerfully tutored me in 
what this means: "Wikipedia is not 'truth,' Wikipedia is 'verifiability' 
of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as 
reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, 
Wikipedia will echo that."

Tempted to win simply through sheer tenacity, I edited the page again. 
My triumph was even more fleeting than before. Within seconds the page 
was changed back. The reason: "reverting possible vandalism." Fearing 
that I would forever have to wear the scarlet letter of Wikipedia 
vandal, I relented but noted with some consolation that in the wake of 
my protest, the editors made a slight gesture of reconciliation—they 
added the word "credible" so that it now read, "The prosecution, led by 
Julius Grinnell, did not offer credible evidence connecting any of the 
defendants with the bombing. ... " Though that was still inaccurate, I 
decided not to attempt to correct the entry again until I could clear 
the hurdles my anonymous interlocutors had set before me.

So I waited two years, until my book on the trial was published. "Now, 
at last, I have a proper Wikipedia leg to stand on," I thought as I 
opened the page and found at least a dozen statements that were factual 
errors, including some that contradicted their own cited sources. I 
found myself hesitant to write, eerily aware that the self-deputized 
protectors of the page were reading over my shoulder, itching to revert 
my edits and tutor me in Wiki-decorum. I made a small edit, testing the 
waters.

My improvement lasted five minutes before a Wiki-cop scolded me, "I hope 
you will familiarize yourself with some of Wikipedia's policies, such as 
verifiability and undue weight. If all historians save one say that the 
sky was green in 1888, our policies require that we write 'Most 
historians write that the sky was green, but one says the sky was blue.' 
... As individual editors, we're not in the business of weighing claims, 
just reporting what reliable sources write."

I guess this gives me a glimmer of hope that someday, perhaps before 
another century goes by, enough of my fellow scholars will adopt my 
views that I can change that Wikipedia entry. Until then I will have to 
continue to shout that the sky was blue.

Timothy Messer-Kruse is a professor in the School of Cultural and 
Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University. He is author of The 
Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded 
Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and The Haymarket Conspiracy: 
Transatlantic Anarchist Networks, to be published later this year by the 
University of Illinois Press.

---

Two things that the article relates to, currently happening/ in proposal:

A discussion on oral citations (recently revived): 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Oral_Citations

A proposal to examine citations, including the use of 'primary sources': 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Project_Ideas/InCite

---

Cheers,
Achal