Wal-mart's Wikipedia War

An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust is running an article which claims that lobbyists for Wal-mart have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page. From the article: "Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy, the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart."

This was bound to happen.

As someone who runs a City Wiki [bloomingpedia.org], I always felt that what makes a reference wikis work is that there are more people interested in having a NPOV article than people who have a financial interest at stake. However as companies and politicians become more familiar with the wiki movement and the whole anonyminity of it, they are more likely to see how easily you can edit articles as another PR platform and seek to control it. With the resources and ability to dedicate even a full time team to making sure the Wikipedia article keeps them in a good light, I fear we're entering the age where people who are interested in a NPOV are outmanned by those with a profit interest. After all, for years spammers have nearly outmanned those whole try to filter it.

The problem with information sources for a localized wiki like Bloomingpedia [bloomingpedia.org] though is that since it is on a much smaller scale, its easier to obscure facts because there are not as many industry watchdogs paying attention to companies and organizations. You have to get the information by working for the company or accept the information that a company provides on its website or product brouchures.

Re:This was bound to happen.

I have a true issue with the concept of a "neutral" point of view. No POV is neutral. The belief that such a POV exists is born of the idea that all issues have 2 sides to them, black and white, right and wrong, and that a neutral POV can exist somewhere in the middle. This simply isn't the case.

This is not Wikipedia's definition of NPOV [wikipedia.org]. What you are talking about is more similar to "balance." The idea behind NPOV is to state obvious facts where the facts are known, and to present opinions as opinions. This has nothing to do with "2 sides," and trying to be definitively centrist is in fact against the NPOV policy.

There are plenty of valid criticisms of NPOV. Even many Wikipedians admit that it is an ideal to strive for, not something that can be accomplished entirely. But your strawman is entirely irrelevant to this debate.

There is ALWAYS bias.

However even the facts you choose to present, order presented in, and context can exhibit bias.

Two facts given in the article:

• 2004: Wal-Mart employees in ... Quebec, Canada vote in favour of becoming the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America.
• Five months later, Wal-Mart announces that it would close the store, citing poor sales.

These are two verifiable facts. The facts make Wal-Mart look bad. Now assume we remove the second fact, or move it into a list of stores which have been closed, so that its no longer easily connectable. All the facts are still present, but Wal-Mart in that case comes out looking neutral or good.

There is always bias. Even when sticking to the facts. I think the idea here is that one sides point of view is being systematically repressed by eliminating even the mention of facts and controversy. This is not in the interest of a healthy public debate.

Re:There is ALWAYS bias.

Flip side of that is that the majority of Americans LIKE Wal;-Mart. It's not hard to imagine someone with no ties to Wal-Mart considering some of the attacks on it to be way beyond what is reasonable.

As for myself, I'd give just about anything to get a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the middle of the Silicon Valley area. When I think that strawberries from Watsonville (an hour from here) cost less in Tennessee at a WMSC than they do locally at Albertsons, it becomes immediately obvious how badly the general public is getting screwed by these other chain stores. Hint: there are more Albertsons stores (2500) than WM Supercenters (2000), therefore Albertsons has MORE buying power and should be able to charge LESS for everything. So why do I pay, on average, half again more for groceries than folks at WM Supercenters in similarly expensive metro areas? I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't the cost of employees. They make up a tiny fraction of the overhead of running a store.

The answer is corporate greed... and on the grand scale, Wal-Mart shows less corporate greed than most other companies. This is why their stock isn't doing much in spite of huge total revenue. They're not perfect, but they're a heck of a lot better than most of the alternatives. When I can buy a COLD soft drink in a vending machine outside a Wal-Mart for about what it costs to buy it in a twelve pack at Albertsons or Target, somebody is getting greedy, and it isn't Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is a good example of how to run a business, on the whole. Yes, they could be better about benefits, but to their credit, they are steadily working on adding things like clinics to the stores in an effort to reduce their health care costs so that they CAN improve the benefits they offer to their employees without it breaking the bank. And they are already better than most small, non-chain employers; 49% of businesses with under 100 employees don't offer any insurance at all according to a recent government survey.

And FWIW, everyone I've asked who has worked at Wal-Mart said that they had health insurance. Every Single One. Not everyone is eligible, granted, but most of the ineligible are also people who probably should be looking for jobs that require less physical robustness anyway, and thus really shouldn't even attempt to work at Wal-Mart.

So to the critics, spare us the bleeding heart crap. Wal-Mart fills an important public need, driving ludicrous costs down to something more reasonable that everyone can afford, providing good work experience for high school students during the summer, bringing jobs and much-needed supplies to areas where most companies won't even go, etc. They may not be perfect, but without Wal-Mart, living anywhere in the U.S. outside of major metro areas would really, really suck. On the whole the good things that they do for our country FAR outweigh the bad, and IMHO, the Wikipedia article reflects that. It isn't corporate defacement. It is simply showing Wal-Mart without the evtremely negative bias that some people would like to throw into the mix to detract from fairness.

Re:There is ALWAYS bias.

When I think that strawberries from Watsonville (an hour from here) cost less in Tennessee at a WMSC than they do locally at Albertsons, it becomes immediately obvious how badly the general public is getting screwed by these other chain stores. Hint: there are more Albertsons stores (2500) than WM Supercenters (2000), therefore Albertsons has MORE buying power and should be able to charge LESS for everything. So why do I pay, on average, half again more for groceries than folks at WM Supercenters in similarly expensive metro areas? I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't the cost of employees. They make up a tiny fraction of the overhead of running a store.

You need to be careful not to confuse total stores with total volume of product moved. Wal*mart has one of the most efficient supply-chain systems ever implemented. This is what allows them to push their costs down and earn similar (or more) per transaction compared to operations like Albertson's. Albertson's may also have union labor; something that changes the cost of employees significantly.

The answer is corporate greed... and on the grand scale, Wal-Mart shows less corporate greed than most other companies. [...] When I can buy a COLD soft drink in a vending machine outside a Wal-Mart for about what it costs to buy it in a twelve pack at Albertsons or Target, somebody is getting greedy, and it isn't Wal-Mart.

And it isn't Albertson's either. The machines outside most stores are run by an independant vending machine operator without an affiliation with Albertson's, Safeway or whomever. In some cases, there are agreements to couple a store with a particular operator in a particular region or city, but the pricing of these machines is not set by the store in these cases.

Re:There is ALWAYS bias.

Here's how I read your post:

[unsupported assertion] [speculation]

[anecdotal evidence] [moral relativity] [faulty logic: more stores does not equal more buying power, more money equals more buying power.] [unsupported assertion]

[unsupported assertion] [faulty logic: price of stock is no indicator of corporate greed or lack thereof] [unsupported assertion] [faulty generalization, not to mention failing to account for other reasons why the price of one item would be kept below market: loss-leader]

[undocumented claims][false reasoning][undocumented claims][incomplete comparison: what are Walmart's numbers? Does the legal requirement have anything to do with it?]

[anecdotal evidence][unsupported assertion combined with generalization]

[ad hominem attack][faulty assumption: will we tolerate anything in the name of lower prices?] [faulty assumption: is Walmart really the only store offering affordable prices?][unsupported assertion][undocumented claim][unsupported assertion][statement of opinion, thankfully labelled as such] [unsupported assertion][unsupported assertion]

Re:There is ALWAYS bias.

Now for the reality check. I make less money at an engineer's salary here in Silicon Valley than a college professor in West Tennessee. In terms of absolute dollars, I make substantially more. Adjusted for cost of living, I make the equivalent of about $15/hour in Tennessee. Housing makes up the bulk of that, but I also pay 10% more for fuel, 50% more for food, 100% more for telephone, etc. Those seemingly small expenses add up FAST when you put a pencil to it. Just reducing one of those places where this area overcharges people can make a substantial improvement in overall quality of life.

As for your comment about Albertsons employees eating cake, while I know you're trying to attack my opinion, you are actually bolstering it significantly. The people who benefit the most from Wal-Mart are the ones who can't afford to buy groceries, including employees working at or near minimum wage at supermarkets, local stores, etc. When people have to pay more for their most basic commodities, it hurts the poor the most.

What most people fail to realize when they see Wal-Mart as the big, bad, evil juggernaut, is that the employees of Wal-Mart often end up better off with less benefits from Wal-Mart supercenters than they do with better benefits from unionized, benefits-bearing labor at other supermarkets. Why? Because when the supercenter moves into town, those low-paid workers end up paying so much less for their basic needs.

When you're spending most of your money on food and shelter, cutting 30% off the cost of your food makes a big difference. By contrast, broader availability of (non-emergency) medical plans generally make little difference in quality of life for the vast majority of Wal-Mart employees, who are predominantly young and relatively healthy compared with the average workforce.

Re:This was bound to happen.

I fear we're entering the age where people who are interested in a NPOV are outmanned by those with a profit interest.

I generally agree with your overall comments, but I do have issue with the statement above. Really, you should say that those "who are interested in a NPOV are outmanned by those with an agenda". Profit is only one aspect and generally implies that it's people like Walmart (and other companies) who are really the "bad guys". In the referenced article, the author even mentions that at one point the Walmart page was highly critical of the company. Fact is, many people (who are not Walmart corp competitors) have various personal interests that are negative towards the company (justified or not). The key is to make sure that the pendulum doesn't swing too far in EITHER direction. If most of the news posted about Walmart is negative (and after all, isn't that the nature of news, if Walmart was humming along not doing anything too bad, then you'd hardly hear anything about them), then does a wiki page that simply accumilates these news articles then also biased towards the negative? Does the NPOV imply that any negative comments should be "evened out" by positive? Sticky issue this, but plese retain a NPOV when it comes to those who would attempt to subvert the wiki concept, it's people/orgs with alterior motives, profit or not.

Re:This was bound to happen.

It doesn't mean that they're evil; it means that they're people.

They're evil people.

Re:This was bound to happen.

> The key is to make sure that the pendulum doesn't swing too far in EITHER direction.

As the previous poster wrote, neutral reporting doesn't imply any sort of balance. Just do a quick sanity check at the extremes: how would you keep the Wikipedia page on the Nazi regime balanced--by giving equal coverage to their progressive stance on animal rights or their smart fashion sense? Neutral reporting means listing all known and provable facts, and if the final tally of "good" and "bad" doesn't balance, well, that's real life.

Re:This was bound to happen.

how would you keep the Wikipedia page on the Nazi regime balanced

Believe it or not, about 20 years ago, PBS refused to air a Canadian documentary about the Soviet Union's deliberate creation of a famine in the 1930's in Ukraine, even though the film won many awards from credible organizations. Their excuse was that the Soviets didn't get to present their viewpoint!

(Ultimately, PBS did run the film, called "Harvest of Despair," but only because William Buckley ran it on his program. Even then, they forced Buckley to include a discussion with a panel of "experts," who bashed the film.)

Re:This was bound to happen.

(....I suspect that there are so many WM bashers out there....)

There are indeed, but why is it that our local Walmart parking lot is always crowded? People are voting for Walmart with their wallets. In the end that is all that matters to any business, especially retail. If their products were shoddy or their prices too high, Walmart bashers would go away, since Walmart's business would dry up and soon there would be no Walmart to complain about. There are many Microsoft bashers, but the fact is that MS has millions of customers. All large companies were once small, started by someone who had a better idea. Apple and Hewlett-Packard and other now large companies began their road to success in a garage.

Whenever any individual or company, (a group of individuals) becomes successful, there will always be envious detractors. They will accuse the company with off the wall allegations. Sometimes of course the businesses do take legal and moral detours and shortcuts. In the end however any business depends on its employees and customers. It in their best interest to treat them well.

Nothing to see here

An interesting article perhaps, but his conclusions need some work. Here's what I found in a quick investigation:

• The Unionization issue can be found on the Wal-Mart Employee and Labor Relations [wikipedia.org] page, which is linked to from the Debates over Wal-Mart [wikipedia.org] page.
• The Walmart [wikipedia.org] article is definitely NPOV. It presents the cold facts with practically no commentary or spin. If I had any complaint about it, it would be that it's poorly written. The topics jump around, the facts are presented suddenly and without order, and the grammar is atrocious. What it needs is a good rewrite.
• His point concerning the number of edits fails to prove anything. If you look at the History for the Rain Forest [wikipedia.org] article, you'll find a similar number of edits. 99% of them are vandalism.

All in all, I can't find any hard evidence to support his claims, and the remaining evidence he presents seems to be nothing more than, "I think this page should be more critical of Wal-Mart, therefore there must be lobbists at work!" While that's a nice sentiment, it doesn't make for a smoking gun.

Re:Nothing to see here

From the Discussion page:

Adolf Hitler was the fuehrer of Germany, who reformed the German economy in the 1930s. He enjoyed painting and playing with his dog. He married his lifelong sweetheart, Eva Braun, two days prior to his death.
        See also: Criticism of Adolf Hitler

Seems fair to me.

I know, I know ... Goodwin's law.

Re:Nothing to see here

I think this shows the differences in how people perceive "neutral". After all, some people think Fox News is fair and balanced while others say NPR is fair and balanced. Likewise, maybe some PR hacks for Wal-Mart really do believe they're being neutral and the author of TFA thinks the Wikipedia article isn't neutral enough. I'm not taking any sides on the issue. Probably the only way to be really neutral is to read as much as you can on the issue from both sides and try to cut through the bullshit, and really, most people don't have that time.

Re:Nothing to see here

After all, some people think Fox News is fair and balanced while others say NPR is fair and balanced.

It depends upon what you call, "fair and balanced".

A news organization's purpose is to inform, not to proffer an opinion. In the area of informing, NPR does better than Fox. For example, more than 60% of Fox News listeners thought the US found WMD's in Iraq, less than 20% of NPR's listeners thought the same. Since Washington has admitted that no WMDs were found, which news organization did a better job of informing its listeners?

also wrong

The purpose of a _Company_ is to make a profit. The purpose of a _News_ organization, by definition, is to inform. If a supposed news organization isn't doing that, it's not really a news organization.

Providing a particular slant along with the news, if the slant is overwhelming enough to create the vast distortions perpetrated by the likes of Fox News, then said organization isn't really informing, rather, they are misleading.

Afterall, sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken :) You can say it does, pretend it does, demand that it does, get legislation passed that says it does, but it doesn't.

Re:Nothing to see here

A news organization's purpose is to inform, not to proffer an opinion.

I think you mean should be. Traditionally, US media's purpose has been neither; it has been to profit. Fox news is breaking new ground in pushing a particular point of view. I guess it is profitable, too.

Re:Nothing to see here

A news organization's purpose is to inform, not to proffer an opinion.

I think you mean should be. Traditionally, US media's purpose has been neither; it has been to profit. Fox news is breaking new ground in pushing a particular point of view.

Breaking new ground? Hardly. Having a definite slant/POV/opinion to broadcast is an old (as in 'right back to the origins of mass media in the 16-1700's') tradition. The idea that the media should be 'neutral, fair, and balanced' (or at least seem to be) is very new - since WWII.

Re:Nothing to see here

Ah, but we DID find WMD's in Iraq.

However, since they were highly advanced biological weapons developed with the help of ex-Soviet scientists, we hid the discovery. These bio-weapons are being further developed in the hope that they can later be deployed against the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans and, of course, the French... ...GOD-DAMMIT, WHO STOLE MY MEDS!

Re:Nothing to see here

Did NPR report that US deaths in Iraq hit a 2-year low in March?

Following which it immediatelty jumped up in April [usatoday.com].

Or did they report there was a "civil war" in Iraq? One of those is factually true, the other is not.

What do you mean? Someone gets to officialy declare "a civil war"? Or is it based on the amount of armed militias, sectarian gangs, and random thugs blowing things up and killing people by the hundreds? In the first case, no civil war was ever fought, ever as there are no valid, legitimate "sides" to "officialy" declare it, before it starts. If it is the other, a "civil war" is simmering in Iraq.

Which of them makes one "better" informed? I guess it's a matter of opinion.

Not emphasising one, versus the other (which is your whole beef here) does impact the listener's information. However it pales in comparison with simple partisan hackery which places like FOX and much of the corporate media represent. The point is that none of the so called "news" organizations should engage in either. No careful selection of news items to fit an agenda, but far more importantly a severe separation of "news" from "opinion". There are many privileges granted to newsmen in exchange for their supposed allegiance to truth, not to the bottom line. If they are unable to fulfill their part of the bargrain, all their privileges should be revoked and the so-called "news" channels severely penalized by FCC via revoking their licenses and granting the bandwith to real news organizations.

Re:Nothing to see here

Did NPR report that US deaths in Iraq hit a 2-year low in March?

So NPR ignores positive news in Iraq? Subtle and devious. Of course, I'm sure you checked your fact with a simple web search.

Oh wait...

Rate of New U.S. Deaths Declining in Iraq [npr.org]

Now, I don't mean to be a complete jerk by pointing this out. Just 80 percent jerk. The other 20 percent wants people to actually go and read, listen, or watch the news source before they criticize it.

Informed opinion makes the discussion more interesting, and civil.

Re:Nothing to see here

According to Richard Miniter's book, Disinformation, there has been found:

...

Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3861197.stm [bbc.co.uk]

"But the US military said the agent was so deteriorated it posed no threat."

"But the US military said that while two of the rockets tested positive for sarin, traces of the agent were so small and deteriorated as to be virtually harmless."

How much of a 'MASS' could one hurt with these 'WMDs'? Makes me suspect Minter's book is self-descriptively titled.

Correlation vs. causation

For example, more than 60% of Fox News listeners thought the US found WMD's in Iraq, less than 20% of NPR's listeners thought the same. Since Washington has admitted that no WMDs were found, which news organization did a better job of informing its listeners?

That statement is flawed in that it jumps to the conclusion that correlation implies causation. (The actual study was pretty clear in stating it only found correlation, but of course all the left-wingers went nuts over it mistakenly jumping to the conclusion that it meant causation.)

If you were to ask the Fox and NPR audience if they believed it had been scientifically proven that man is causing global warming, you'd probably find that the Fox viewers are "better informed." It hasn't been scientifically proven that man is causing global warming, but a greater percentage of the NPR audience probably believes it because it's dear to them and their threshold for belief on it is lower. In other words, it's just a correlation due to the political leanings of the two audiences.

If you select a fact on a topic that's widely liked or disliked by the groups, you're going to come up with a bias independent of the quality of the news service. Therefore to test the quality of news services, you need to select facts that are neutral or equally liked to disliked by both audiences.

Re:Nothing to see here

That specific example actually is bullshit. The stats for thinking WMDs were found was 33% (Fox viewers) and 11% (NPR listeners). These stats are from October 2003 (8months after the beginning, 6 months after "mission accomplished") so surely those misguided Fox viewers have stepped back into reality by now. The one where Fox viewers really botched it was the "Evidence Hussein worked with Al Qaeda". 67% Fox and 16% NPR. The other statistic they looked at was "World Public Opinion" is it for or against our war in Iraq. 35% Fox and 5% NPR. Now... The best is the cumulative statistic. 1 or more misperception vs no misperception. Misperceptions: 80% Fox and 23% NPR. So basically if you watch Fox News (aka the White House mouthpiece) you'll have an inaccurate view of reality. Here's the study:

http://65.109.167.118/pipa/pdf/oct03/IraqMedia_Oct 03_rpt.pdf [65.109.167.118]

Re:Nothing to see here

Nonsense. Presentation of only factual information is not at all an indication of lack of bias. Anybody who has taken basic courses in behavioral psychology can tell you this. The selection of facts from a nearly limitless pool of factual information can highly bias the perception of a reader of a set of facts. It is nearly trivial to choose a set of facts that lead a reader to radically different conclusions, if one chooses to do so.

The Walmart page falls victim to this, as well as presenting a set of very positive facts at the top of the "Debates" page to create an anchor point for perceptions skewed toward the positive. Setting such an anchor point goes a huge way to diminish the perceptual impact of any following negative information.

Clearly the people on Walmart's side have a solid understanding of these psychological principles, which doesn't surprise me from a company that employs "greeters" to make themselves feel more friendly. The people at Wikipedia obviously are missing the point if they think NP