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= On Trusting Wikipedia by P.D. Magnus =

=Background on P.D. Magnus=

P.D Magnus is a philosophy professor at the University of Albany who has worked there for the past seventeen years since 2004. He received his bachelor degree in philosophy and physics with a minor in Russian and mathematics and also received his masters and doctorate philosophy degree at the University of California, San Diego.

His specialization is on the philosophy of science while his field within philosophy is natural kinds and the value of science as he is motivated by a non skeptical but a fallibilistic view of scientific knowledge. Some of the topics he has written about include issues in the history of philosophy, social epistemology and art ontology. Furthermore as a philosopher in his field he has received numerous awards such as the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching and a fellowship from the National Science Foundation as a graduate.

He has been published in many areas such as scientific realism and natural kinds as well as the underdetermination of theory by data and natural kinds. His first written work was a textbook titled an introduction to formal logic, his first involvement in a book was by being a coeditor of the book New Waves in Philosophy of Science and the first book he wrote was Scientific Enquiry and Natural Kinds: From Planets to Mallards.

As a professor he teaches many classes and some of the classes he has taught in the consist of theory of knowledge, existentialist philosophy and understanding science. The classes he is currently teaching are introduction to art and introduction to logic.

https://www.albany.edu/philosophy/faculty/pd-magnus https://www.fecundity.com/job/

= Main Goals = P.D. Magnus outlines three main goals in his philosophical work On Trusting Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is Not a Regular Encyclopedia
P.D. Magnus states that encyclopedias are perceived as the starting point for research. However, Wikipedia appears to offer more than just a launching pad for research. Wikipedia offers the following to a user


 * Wikipedia is more easily accessible than counterparts such as Britannica.
 * Users and researchers in the premature stages of conducting research are often directed towards Wikipedia when they begin their research somewhere other Wikipedia.
 * Wikipedia offers the user a massive and rapidly expanding amount of content to begin research and data collection.

Traditional Methods & Assessing the Trustworthiness of Wikipedia
The author provides five methods for a user to utilize when evaluating the trustworthiness of Wikipedia.


 * Authority
 * Plausibility of Style
 * Plausibility of Content
 * Calibration
 * Sampling

New Strategies to Responsibly Interact with Wikipedia
P.D. Magnus offers four strategies for the reader to employ when interacting with online encyclopedia databases such as Wikipedia.


 * Use Wikipedia links to obtain reliable and accurate sources of information.
 * Look at the edit history and user discussion pages for articles you are reviewing to evaluate the authority of sources used for that particular article.
 * Links in Wikipedia should direct the user to both the dated and current article to allow for comparative analysis.
 * Users should cultivate a healthy skepticism when employing Wikipedia as a research tool; remember that Wikipedia is a new way of gathering information. Keep in mind false information can and will be present in some articles.

= Empirical Questions =

Wikipedia is an Empirical Question
Trust in Wikipedia depends on if doing so will yield true beliefs

In order to identify trust, one must look at an entry and determine the comparison between the amount of true and false claims within them

The Study of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica - from Journal Nature
Results indicate no significant difference between the two


 * 4 serious errors from each encyclopedia (8 total) were found
 * Wikipedia had 162 factual errors, omissions, or misleading statements
 * Encyclopedia Britannica had 123 factual errors, omissions, or misleading statements
 * Wikipedia contains 32% more errors than Encyclopedia Britannica

The results favor Encyclopedia Britannica; however, Wikipedia entries varied more


 * Encyclopedia Britannica: mean error per article (3.0) standard deviation (2.4)
 * Wikipedia: mean error per article (3.9) standard deviation (3.5)
 * Wikipedia contained more entries with zero errors, but two entries were worse than the worst of Encyclopedia Britannica

Why the Wide Variability in Wikipedia
The community of contributors helps identify reliability of the source; therefore, quality of entries is highly variable


 * Wikipedia relies on volunteer contributors
 * Some entries regarding a specific topic are controlled by a group of contributors, but unrelated entries most likely do not have the same contributor
 * Wikipedia entries change over time as new contributors revise entries, it might correct itself over time, but how long will the correction take?
 * Dan Tynan added a fictional comment to an entry and it was not removed until three months and almost 200 edits later
 * Alex Halavais added 13 false claims in various entries and all were deleted within three hours
 * Association Effect : errors were corrected not due to independent detection, but because someone found one error and checked what other edits the user had made, which protects against rampant vandalism. Probability of error being corrected increases as the user posts more errors over a short time.
 * P.D. Magnus added falsehoods and tracked them over 48 hours. Within that time, 10 out of 28 (36%) were corrected or flagged

True Beliefs Depend on How Wikipedia is Used
The density of true claims and rate at which false claims are corrected qualify as empirical questions


 * Whether we should trust Wikipedia turns into how and to what extent we should trust Wikipedia
 * This question is not completely empirical

= What Wikipedia is Not =

Wikipedia vs. an Encyclopedia
Magnus dissects the reliability of Wikipedia throughout his piece; however, he begins with a discussion on what Wikipedia is not. Stating that Wikipedia is a jumping point for researchers and users alike, Magnus is able to justify the claims he will make throughout the article. In order to understand what Wikipedia is, one must understand what it is not. Therefore, Magnus discusses and compares Wikipedia to a traditional encyclopedia of which many are familiar with.

Magnus breaks up his comparison into three parts, each of which contribute to his final conclusion that Wikipedia, while providing similar information housed in a traditional encyclopedia, has an entire identity of its own.

Wikipedia is more readily accessed

 * Magnus suggests that the typical form of an encyclopedia, i.e., Britannica, often compete with books or other forms of information that are limited to physical copies; however, Wikipedia’s main competitors are other online resources available for public use.
 * From elementary school students to professors, Wikipedia is used by a wide range of individuals seeking information on a topic of their choosing with is a testament to the ease of access of the platform itself as information about anything and everything is available.
 * Magnus concludes this section by posing the question: How many times have you consulted Wikipedia in the last year… and Britannica?

Users are typically led to Wikipedia pages during the initial stages of their research

 * Users and researchers in the premature stages of conducting research are often directed towards Wikipedia when they begin their research somewhere other Wikipedia.
 * Magnus notes that while many users are aware of the potential dangers of a Wikipedia article’s housed information, they are regularly unaware that avoiding a Wikipedia article would more often than not encounter information from said article on another site.
 * Due to the nature of Wikipedia’s status in correspondence with the GNU Free documentation License, the content within a Wikipedia article is allowed to be freely reproduced.
 * This leads Magnus to the conclusion that while many outside websites consult Wikipedia’s information, sometimes copying it verbatim, there are instances in which acknowledgement is absent.

Wikipedia contains and offers a plethora of content of which is used to conduct research
Magnus concludes that comparing Wikipedia to a traditional encyclopedia is not beneficial as they house similar information, but in different breadths. While he understands that the two sources are different, neither one nor the other is “better” and that forming a belief based upon a Wikipedia article requires more investigation.
 * Magnus claims that Wikipedia is a source a user has the ability to consult when other, traditional, sources of information – such as encyclopedias – lack correct and accurate material.
 * Finally, Magnus addresses that Wikipedia welcomes new contributions every single day and that there is far more information pertaining to popular culture and current events than housed in a traditional encyclopedia.

= Evaluating Claims Online = Magnus establishes five methods for determining the trustworthiness of sources:


 * 1) Authority
 * 2) Plausibility of Style
 * 3) Plausibility of Content
 * 4) Calibration
 * 5) Sampling

Authority
Authority is the "power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior". Magnus asserts that underlying background knowledge about a speaker can determine if they have the authority to be trusted. Background knowledge can be, but is not limited to, the expertise of the speaker, the general social reputation of the speaker, or the education of the speaker.

Plausibility of Style
Plausibility of style is how the writing style of the source compares to the expected writing style of a trustworthy article in a particular field. There is not one style of writing that can be deemed trustworthy in all cases because the stylistic expectations change with the context of the article. Magnus makes clear that a stylistically plausible article is not necessarily an untrustworthy article, but a stylistically implausible article is often untrustworthy.

Plausibility of Content
Plausibility of content is the perception of an articles trustworthiness due to the plausibility of the claims made in the article. Just as with plausibility of style, an article is not necessarily trustworthy its content is plausible, but is likely untrustworthy if its content is implausible.

Calibration
Calibration is the expectation an article is trustworthy based on the accuracy of other articles produced by the same source. Magnus admits this method is another assessment of the authority of the speaker, but Magnus differentiates these assessment of authority because calibration requires no prior knowledge about the authority of the speaker.

Sampling
Sampling is the examination of other outside sources to ascertain the trustworthiness of the original article. If unrelated trustworthy sources corroborate the claims made in the article under question, then it is justified to trust that article. Magnus suggests a physicians second opinion is an excellent practical example of sampling. In this example, the patient is examining another outside source to corroborate the recommendations of their primary physician.

= Standard Methods Undone = In this section, Magnus re-considers the 5 strategies put forth in earlier sections for evaluating claims from online sources. Each of these strategies, he argues, is not sufficient for evaluating claims on Wikipedia because of its unique features as a multi-author source. Based on his earlier claims, he re-asserts that it is important to be able to evaluate claims on Wikipedia because of its unreliable nature.

Authority
Based on the information presented earlier in the article, Magnus claims that the reliability of articles on Wikipedia varies widely, and therefore one cannot trust the authority of Wikipedia itself as an author. Also, since the authors can be anonymous, one cannot count on the reliability of individual authors.

Plausibility of Style
Since Wikipedia is collective in nature, Magnus points out that some authors may edit and fix the style of articles without changing the content. This would make the style seem plausible to the reader, without telling us anything about the author who provided the content.

Plausibility of Content
While Magnus does acknowledge that Wikipedia does a good job of removing obviously false claims through its peer review model, he still believes that “plausible falsehoods” are not filtered out by this method. Therefore, the reader cannot trust the content just because it seems plausible.

Calibration
Readers can only use the calibration method when they have background knowledge of a topic or have other reliable resources to check. Most users will not have expert knowledge of most of the topics, so it is hard to evaluate claims by this method.

Sampling
Magnus points out in this section that many sites online pull their information straight from Wikipedia. This means that checking the claims on Wikipedia with other sources will almost always confirm the Wikipedia claims, even if they are not true.

= Normative Recommendations = Magnus uses this section of the essay to summarize some of his broader point on the trustworthiness of Wikipedia He ultimately asserts that despite the need for skepticism when approaching Wikipedia and information sources like it, skepticism alone is not a substantial enough reason to abandon it. Given this stance, Magnus has adopted a new approach that casts aside the plausibly problematic nature of the website and instead poses the question "How do we use it?" .

How to Use Wikipedia
Wikipedia itself frustrates all the "conventional methods we use to evaluate single author web pages and forum posts", the nature of the site presents a different vetting effort given it's ambiguous and open history. You can't estimate the credibility based on one individual or source nor is the credibility guaranteed for you by a book or journal that has supported the writer and their findings. Instead, Magnus counters that you have to change your entire research approach and use Wikipedia as a means to direct you to other resources. At the bottom of every Wikipedia page there is a bibliography and throughout many of the papers there are in-text hyperlinks that can take you to another page with more information on that specific topic. This can also be used as a more efficient means of research as opposed to sifting through pages and sites in the conventional scouring of a search engine.

Wikipedia History
A further means of verification and insight is checking the history and discussion forum of the Wikipedia page. This shows various edits, versions, and discussions had in the process of discerning the truth that gets published. By sifting through this dialogue you can find more specified information as well as consult the versions that may appear more factual. Wikipedia is not a site to be taken at face value but the various functions of the site reveal a broad network of information that you are capable of assessing and using if you are willing to do additional browsing.

Appeal to Plausibility
Magnus addresses an intellectual conundrum when discussing the claims we make about what we search, particularly, in how we relate it to trivia. He states that we may view a piece of information as pure trivia, leaving us justified with getting the basic information without digging for the sources. If it's so trivial that we don't care what to believe then naturally it doesn't seem to matter how we decide on what to believe based on the information present. This establishes a slippery slope because there is no way to know when trivia will stop being inconsequential and later develop intellectual weight. The prospect of this happening makes it even more necessary to consistently use Wikipedia in the proper ways and continue to work towards solutions that create an epistemically viable way to navigate the information.

Conclusion
Despite the issues posed epistemically by sites like Wikipedia, it is naïve to assume that students or anyone will forego the site and not access such a broad library of information when needed. Magnus states that he doesn't have any more substantive strategies on how to adequately navigate the site, only reaffirming those he has already discussed. Stating that users who have no information about these resources can't possibly be expected to use them. Therefore, people must be taught to foster a degree of healthy skepticism, think of it different than you would a traditional resource, and generally learn how to interact with the site in a way that makes you more epistemically responsible for the information you read and possibly disseminate.

= Sources =