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