I think you might be misunderstanding how wikipedia works. It most certainly should NOT fairly represent minority viewpoints of editors. There are quite a lot of editors who believe in weird conspiracy theories, but that doesn't mean they should be given prominence in the article.
The policies are designed to fairly represent significant minority viewpoints of scientists. (Talking about medical/science articles here, which is what I mostly edit). When there is a significant controversy (e.g. chronic lyme), that is covered.
I've never seen any kind of PR company on wikipedia, although I don't tend to edit company articles.
>I think you might be misunderstanding how wikipedia works.
I don't think so.
>It most certainly should NOT fairly represent minority viewpoints of editors. There are quite a lot of editors who believe in weird conspiracy theories, but that doesn't mean they should be given prominence in the article.
The problem with only accepting "reliable sources" is that that leads, essentially, to only parroting what is frequently heard in the mainstream media. The articles are thus only "fair" if you consider the conventional treatment of the topic at hand "fair". If you believe this, most likely you are just terrible at detecting bias and should avoid editing WP anyway because you can't spot NPOV violations to save your life. I think it's a mistake to claim mainstream publications are de-facto sources of truth and/or that they should always be favored over other sources.
Perhaps the most egregious demonstrations of the absurdity of WP's source policies are that Wikipedia will often reject primary sources because a) they aren't published by a mainstream outlet or b) they believe the primary source is "too biased" to comment on an issue involving itself.
The reality, however, is that no matter how right you may be, even if you have prominent mainstream sources to overcome the site's contrived reliability test, which is in fact often the case, it really comes down to which camp has more time to edit war (admins included here). This is how we get badly biased articles on even slightly controversial subjects; WP is not really self-policing, it's just mob territory. Of course, if we believe that the relevant mob's opinion always comports with reality, there is no problem. I believe that believing this, about almost anything, is naive.
>I've never seen any kind of PR company on wikipedia, although I don't tend to edit company articles.
A single Google search will bring you face-to-face with the evidence. While a lot of people seem to state that it's important to "not edit the article directly" but rather suggest changes on the Talk pages, it's safe to say that even among the people who repeat this mantra, it's frequently ignored. Like SEO, no matter what you say about how you use it, you have no option here but to compete or die. You'll also find results in Google's Top 10 that ignore this rule and offer to either help you edit your WP page yourself or take money for editing and monitoring it for you. WP is a staple of online "reputation management", which is something every company does, whether they acknowledge it or not.
>The problem with only accepting "reliable sources" is that that leads, essentially, to only parroting what is frequently heard in the mainstream media
That is the whole point of wikipedia...it parrots the sources without trying to determine what the truth is. If you accept that limitation, wikipedia works very well.
> I think it's a mistake to claim mainstream publications are de-facto sources of truth
Wikipedia specifically does NOT attempt to get to the truth:
>A single Google search will bring you face-to-face with the evidence
A single google search informed me that a wiki-PR company had been systematically investigated and then banned. Looking at the individual edits (e.g. on Naomi Campbell's page) shows that most of them have been reverted, proving that wikipedia works. (There will always be way more wikipedia editors than PR people for any particular article).
>That is the whole point of wikipedia...it parrots the sources without trying to determine what the truth is. If you accept that limitation, wikipedia works very well.
I thought that the goal was to represent "the sum of all human knowledge"?
I will agree that if you accept Wikipedia as a summary of contemporary news reports, then it's probably not that bad (but many articles will need to be dumbed down significantly to meet this standard). That's not my understanding of what an encyclopedia is supposed to be.
>Wikipedia specifically does NOT attempt to get to the truth
If that policy were followed, it would be fine; we wouldn't hear "oh, well, we can't trust Local County News, they're probably not big enough" or "Well, you can't trust $ARTICLE_SUBJECT to provide an accurate account" because it wouldn't matter. It would only matter that the account could be verified as authentic-ish with reasonable confidence. IMO that's a pretty low bar, but most Wikipedia source nazis seem to insist on a major mainstream publication like the NYT. This works out conveniently if you find yourself philosophically or politically aligned with NYT.
>A single google search informed me that a wiki-PR company had been systematically investigated and then banned.
This is really just intentional ignorance. It's like insisting there is no astroturfing on HN, reddit, or Facebook. WP is actively manipulated as a routine part of brand management and public relations. The first hit for "wikipedia page management" is http://www.prnewsonline.com/topics/pr-insiders/2013/04/16/wh... ; literally a howto on manipulating Wikipedia for brand managers. While this one repeats the rule not to edit directly, other hits on the first page interpret that for us to "never edit directly from your company's IP address", which I'm 100% confident is the method of 95% of WP-aware brand managers out there.
>most Wikipedia source nazis seem to insist on a major mainstream publication like the NYT
That is another basic wikipedia policy. Some sources are more reliable than others. Most people would agree that NYT is more reliable than the Drumheller Mail.
>It's like insisting there is no astroturfing on HN, reddit, or Facebook
I didn't say it doesn't happen. I'm saying it's not a significant issue, because there are more editors than PR people on each page. Can you give a single instance of this being a problem on a current wikipedia page? I've already asked DanBC for specific instances of problems, and he hasn't managed to come up with anything either.
There are lots of people complaining about wikipedia, but very few if any instances of actual problems.
The policies are designed to fairly represent significant minority viewpoints of scientists. (Talking about medical/science articles here, which is what I mostly edit). When there is a significant controversy (e.g. chronic lyme), that is covered.
I've never seen any kind of PR company on wikipedia, although I don't tend to edit company articles.