Why Wikipedia can misinform readers and how to solve this problem

[zakiyatasnim]

Wikipedia is not considered the most reliable source of information on the Internet. However, a June report from the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, shows that the problem of misinformation on the site may be much more serious than it seems.



Ideological manipulations
The Wikimedia Foundation report says that a small group of volunteer administrators responsible for the Croatian version of Wikipedia abused their power by distorting articles to “conform to the views of political organizations and groups that can be broadly defined as the Croatian far-right movement.”

For almost a decade, administrators have been rehabilitating the crimes committed by the Croatian fascist organization Ustasha. For example, in 2018, it was discovered that the Croatian version of Wikipedia referred to Auschwitz and Jasenovac, known as the Croatian Auschwitz, as “assembly” rather than “concentration” camps, i.e. with a much less negative connotation.

Users of the Croatian version of Wikipedia have been noticing such discrepancies since 2013. But the Wikimedia Foundation only addressed the issue last year. This points to a flaw in the site's crowdsourcing approach: it only works if the group of editors is large, diverse, and independent enough to weed out claims that contradict the facts.

Overall, the English Wikipedia meets these criteria. As of August 2021, it has over 120,000 editors. Because English is considered an international language, this group represents a variety of geographical and cultural backgrounds.

Many researchers consider the English version of Wikipedia to be almost, but not quite as accurate as traditional encyclopedias.

Wikipedia is available in over 300 languages, half of which have fewer than 10 active editors. These versions are particularly vulnerable to manipulation by ideological groups.

A similar problem occurs in the Japanese version of the site. Despite france number data being the second most popular version after the English version, it is managed by only a few dozen administrators and is viewed six times less often.

As in the Croatian version, politically motivated users have downplayed the war crimes committed by the Japanese army during World War II on the Japanese Wikipedia. For example, in 2010, the title of the page "Nanjing Massacre" was changed to "Nanjing Incident." Since then, the term has become popular in Japan.

In fact, many non-English Wikipedias need to be monitored to ensure quality and accuracy. This is especially true for languages ​​that are managed by small, homogeneous teams of editors. But the Wikimedia Foundation is not looking to fix this. And it’s not a lack of funding: the fund’s total has grown to $300 million this year, according to the Daily Dot.

Possible solution
If the Wikimedia Foundation cannot ensure quality for all language versions, perhaps it would be better to create just one Wikipedia. This would be a common authoritative source that users from all over the world could read and translate into any language.

For example, some Japanese people prefer the English version of Wikipedia, which they consider more complete and less biased. They use Google Translate to look up information. Machine translation has improved rapidly in recent years, so it is safe to assume that users in other countries will do the same.