Wikipedia Watch
Most criticism of Wikipedia has been directed toward its content, its community of established users, and its processes. Critics have questioned its factual reliability, the readability and organization of the articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, and its political bias. Concerns have also been raised about systemic bias along gender, racial, political, corporate, institutional, and national lines. In addition, conflicts of interest arising from corporate campaigns to influence content have also been highlighted. Further concerns include the vandalism and partisanship facilitated by anonymous editing, clique behavior from contributors as well as administrators and other top figures, social stratification between a guardian class and newer users, excessive rule-making, edit warring, and uneven application of policies. Criticism of content The reliability of Wikipedia is often questioned. In "Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge" (2010), journalist Edwin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in news and journalism, government, advertising, entertainment, education, and activism and is often associated with material which is prepared by governments as part of war efforts, political campaigns, health campaigns, revolutionaries, big businesses, ultra-religious organizations, the media, and certain individuals such as soapboxers. In the 20th century, the English term ''propaganda'' was often associated with a manipulative approach, but historically, propaganda has been a neutral descriptive term of any material that promotes certain opinions or ideologies. Equivalent non-English terms have also la ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nature (journal)
''Nature'' is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England. As a multidisciplinary publication, ''Nature'' features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It has core editorial offices across the United States, continental Europe, and Asia under the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature. ''Nature'' was one of the world's most cited scientific journals by the Science Edition of the 2019 ''Journal Citation Reports'' (with an ascribed impact factor of 42.778), making it one of the world's most-read and most prestigious academic journals. , it claimed an online readership of about three million unique readers per month. Founded in autumn 1869, ''Nature'' was first circulated by Norman Lockyer and Alexander Macmillan as a public forum for scientific innovations. The mid-20th century facilitated an editorial expansion for the journal; ''Nature'' redoubled its efforts in exp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Internet Troll
In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others' perception. The behavior is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other users online. In this context, both the noun and the verb forms of "troll" are frequently associated with Internet discourse. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. ''The Courier-Mail'' and ''The Today Show'' have used "troll" to mean "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families". In addition, depictions of trolling have been included in popular fictional works, such as the HBO televis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mob Rule
Mob rule or ochlocracy ( el, ὀχλοκρατία, translit=okhlokratía; la, ochlocratia) is the rule of government by a mob or mass of people and the intimidation of legitimate authorities. Insofar as it represents a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase ''mobile vulgus'', meaning "the fickle crowd" from which the English term "mob" originally was derived in 1680s, during the Glorious Revolution. Ochlocracy is synonymous in meaning and usage to the modern informal term "mobocracy", which arose in the 18th century as a colloquial neologism. Likewise, the ruling mobs in ochlocracies may sometimes genuinely reflect the will of the majority in a manner approximating democracy, but ochlocracy is characterised by the absence or impairment of a procedurally civil and democratic process. An "ochlocrat" is one who is an advocate or partisan of ochlocracy. It also may be used as an adjective ("ochlocratic" or "ochlocratical"). Etymology Ochlocracy come ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vice (magazine)
''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, the founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, which consists of divisions including the printed magazine as well as a website, broadcast news unit, a film production company, a record label, and a publishing imprint. As of February 2015, the magazine's editor-in-chief is Ellis Jones. History Founded by Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes, and Shane Smith (the latter two being childhood friends), the magazine was launched in 1994 as the ''Voice of Montreal'' with government funding. The intention of the founders was to provide work and a community service. When the editors later sought to dissolve their commitments with the original publisher, Alix Laurent, they bought him out and changed the name to ''Vice'' in 1996. Richard Szalwinski, a Canadian software millionaire, acquired the magazi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Larry Sanger
Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded the online encyclopedia Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined the name and wrote much of Wikipedia's original governing policy, such as "Neutral point of view". Sanger has worked on other online projects, including Nupedia, ''Encyclopedia of Earth'', Citizendium, WatchKnowLearn, Reading Bear, Infobitt, Everipedia, the Knowledge Standards Foundation and the encyclosphere. He also advised blockchain company Phunware and the nonprofit online American political encyclopedia Ballotpedia. While studying at college, Sanger developed an interest in using the Internet for educational purposes and joined the online encyclopedia Nupedia as editor-in-chief in 2000. Disappointed with the slow progress of Nupedia, Sanger proposed using a wiki to solicit and receive articles to put through Nupedia's peer-review process; this change led to the development and launch of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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History Of Wikipedia
Wikipedia began with its first edit on 15 January 2001, two days after the domain was registered by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Its technological and conceptual underpinnings predate this; the earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia was made by Rick Gates in 1993, and the concept of a free-as-in-freedom online encyclopedia (as distinct from mere open source) was proposed by Richard Stallman in 1998. Crucially, Stallman's concept specifically included the idea that no central organization should control editing. This characteristic greatly contrasted with contemporary digital encyclopedias such as Microsoft Encarta, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', and even Bomis's Nupedia, which was Wikipedia's direct predecessor. In 2001, the license for Nupedia was changed to GFDL, and Wales and Sanger launched Wikipedia using the concept and technology of a wiki pioneered in 1995 by Ward Cunningham. Initially, Wikipedia was intended to complement Nupedia, an online encyclop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert McHenry
Robert Dale McHenry (born April 30, 1945) is an American editor, encyclopedist, philanthropist and writer. McHenry worked from 1967 for Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. or associated companies, becoming editor-in-chief of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' in 1992, a position he held until 1997. McHenry is also author of the book '' How to Know'' (2004), and a frequent contributor to journals. Early life and education McHenry was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966. He also received a master's degree from the University of Michigan in 1967. Later in life, McHenry undertook further study at Northwestern University, where he graduated from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management with a Master of Business Administration in 1987. Editorial career McHenry's career at Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. began in 1967. After two years, he transferred to San Francisco Productions to work for Mor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Authority (sociology)
In sociology, authority is the legitimate or socially approved power which one person or a group possesses and practices over another. The element of legitimacy is vital to the notion of authority and is the main means by which authority is distinguished from the more general concept of power. Power can be exerted by the use of force or violence. Authority, by contrast, depends on the acceptance by subordinates of the right of those above them to give them orders or directives. Types The types of political authority were first defined by Max Weber in his essay "Politics as a Vocation" and his other writings in 1919–1920. In this essay he emphasized that the political authority that controlled the state can be composed of the following types of authority, or what is called in German, ''Herrschaft''. Traditional authority: Power legitimized by respect for long-established cultural patterns. Charismatic authority: Power legitimized by extraordinary personal abilities that in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Researching With Wikipedia
Wikipedia can be a great tool for learning and researching information. However, as with all reference works, Wikipedia is not considered to be a reliable source as not everything in Wikipedia is accurate, comprehensive, or unbiased. Many of the general rules of thumb for conducting research apply to Wikipedia, including: * Always be wary of any one single source (in any medium—web, print, television or radio), or of multiple works that derive from a single source. * Where articles have references to external sources (whether online or not) read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says. * In most academic institutions, Wikipedia, like most encyclopedias and other tertiary sources, is unacceptable as a source for facts in a research paper. Some encyclopedias such as ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' have notable authors working for them and may be cited as a secondary source in some cases; institutional policies will vary. For example,Cornel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |