[conspire] Wikpedia & Conflict of Interest (COI)

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] 737 MAX story keeps getting more fractally bad
> Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2019 16:21:04 -0700

> conflict of interest ('COI',
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest).  Persons
> found to have indulged COI editing about, e.g., their famously dead
> fathers, are likely to find their IP addresses locked out of
> further contributing to the encyclopaedia.

Yes, Wikipedia's COI policy seems to be a well hashed out "best"(?)
but imperfect compromise to a difficult problem.
Another fairly typical scenario where this tends to be a problem:
A *highly* technical and specialized area, where, e.g., there are
oh, only about 3 or fewer persons not only qualified to write on
the particular topic, but that are even sufficiently qualified to
understand the topic matter and pass judgement on its (in)accuracy
in articles, make corrections, etc.  But ... due to COI policy, they're
all "too close" to the matter, to write or change Wikipedia article(s)
on the topic.  Sometimes there just *are* no otherwise suitable sources
on the matter, due to COI on the matter.
On the other hand, COI ... there *will* be at least some bias from such
sources, no matter how well intended - and that's most likely a huge
reason for the COI policy ... for better - *and* worse.

And, for better and worse, it's a wiki.  ;-)  Folks *generally*
can add/edit/change/improve the contents.  And that mostly well
contributes to a substantial net improvement (heck, makes it effectively
possible in the case of Wikipedia).  However, too, folks can also screw it
up or put in bad, misleading, incorrect, biased, etc. information.
Fortunately that's often relatively quickly spotted and corrected, but
also unfortunately, that's not always the case.

> So, of course I didn't painstakingly fix and improve the article.
> Because that would be wrong.
>
> Whoever fixed it did a pretty reasonable job, though.
Yes, by the time I looked it over it looked like it had been whipped into
at least pretty reasonable shape.  I'd not gone back to look at source
materials again, so, couldn't off-the-top of my head say it was 100%
accurate, or nearly so, but at least going from memory of source materials
and credible sources, seems now it's probably at least >[>]80%
accurate/correct.
And, alas, often that's about(?) the best one can expect on The Internet?
... at least for various semi-random comments and sources of
[dis]information.  As I often say - at least approximately:
About 20% of what's on The Internet, is anywhere from moderately to
significantly incomplete or inaccurate, all the way through to downright
grossly incorrect and wrong and dangerous.
And, in the case of Wikipedia, many students do get well chastised for
citing Wikipedia as an authoritative source ... as it isn't (quite) that,
however, articles there, properly written, will in fact cite relevant
authoritative sources.  So, in general, Wikipedia not a bad place to
start, but it should never be presumed to be 100% correct, accurate,
complete, and unbiased.