Hoi, So you have determined that people can be manipulated. Good, then what?
If this is the tack that you take you will be grounded because there is no plan. It is a negative attitude that only stifles. Quality is not only in sources, sources can be and are manipulations in their own right. Many important subjects are woefully underrepresented. The argument has it that it is because of a lack of sources..
Sources are relevant but we only are interested in particular subjects. We do not need to look at Kazakhstan to find fault. Amnest (reliable source) indicates that all USA police forces are not in compliance with international agreements on the use of force. NOW WHAT ??
When quality is the subject, it is important to decide how we effectively improve quality. VIAF provided Wikidata with a list of issues they found. Tom checked it out and our quality is better as a result. It means that more information is linked for people who visit a library. When awards are known, adding known recipients in Wikidata based on info from multiple Wikipedias improves the quality and in this way many incorrect links are exposed.
When quality of our projects is the subject, decide how we can do a better job. When Facebook invites companies to manipulate people, it is why Facebook information is suspect. At most it is a reminder that manipulation is an important issue. It does not mean that people cannot add data on their hobby horse.
Quality is important but quality is more than sources. When sources are used as an argument that is detrimental to the quality of Wikidata, then in my opinion we have forgotten why Wikipedia was possible in the first place. It was not because of sources, it was because of the web of information we created, a web that is of a NPOV.
Wikidata does not have a NPOV. It represents facts found in many places. As the information becomes more extended, it becomes possible to find manipulations, errors. This is when sources truly become vital. But do remember, the POV of the USA and many of its sources are as suspect as those from Kazakhstan. Thanks, GerardM
On 29 December 2015 at 11:44, Lilburne lilburne@tygers-of-wrath.net wrote:
On 28/12/2015 18:00, Jane Darnell wrote:
All I said is that the wiki way works, that's all. You can't hide it when someone tries to take over a project, and that is the reason we shouldn't try to anticipate that with convoluted strategies. "Assume Good Faith" will always win out over any strange misguided takeover strategy, which is why governments that intend to do such things choose nowadays to just block wikimedia altogether. It is not our wake-up call to take, but that of the Kazakh people.
Facebook showed the other year that it could manipulate people by what it showed them in their feeds.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10932534/Facebook-conducted-s... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28051930
They didn't do this for fun, they did it to show their clients (advertisers, governments) that they could manipulate millions of people. You only need a small push in one direction or another to influence a large population. Doesn't matter if the push is to buy a particular soap, vote one way or another, or how you see a particular minority, or issue.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2450825/big-data-business-intelligence/f...
Do it to a naively trusted source and you have a triple word score jackpot^H^H^Hboot.
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