Wikipedia is a joke
And it's not funny. Yes, I have a bee in my bonnet about Wikipedia. Why? Well, where do I begin...
Anyone can edit it. Think really hard about this, or, in the alternative, just let the intuitive insanity of that hit you. Any moron can, with a few mouse clicks, post anything at all he wants. Many such morons do. You may think that the truth will win out, that the "good" editors will gang up on the vandals and expend more energy fixing mistakes and improving articles than the vandals spend wrecking them.
Well, you sure are naive! For one thing, the "good" (i.e. pathologically energetic) editors are often precisely the problem. Someone with an ideological axe to grind and a modicum of cleverness can spin falsehood so that it takes a great deal of energy (and often research) to prove his biased statements are just that. The kind of person who does this quite literally has nothing better to do with his time than spend hours every day telling you why the Gulag really wasn't that bad, and if you try to refute him simply, you're in for a treat. He will ask you to cite every. single. thing. you say. Why this standard does not apply reciprocally is unclear to me, but even when I am in the mood to be civil and meticulous, my careful edits have earned me universal scorn, whereas the careless propaganda gets praise and support.
And that's when I'm feeling in a civil mood. When I unleash the full power of my resentment, hatred, arrogance, and intelligence, I have no chance. Sadly, citing oneself as the authority on everything fails to work, even when accurate.
When even the intellectual elites cannot get their facts straight (I had a Yale Law alumna tell a class that Larry Summers thinks women are stupid), why are we putting our faith in the plebs?
Hell in a handbasket for the lose!
27 Comments:
Scientific American once made a graph charting the editing of the always-contentious article on "evolution," and the results were horrifying. There were ominous dips where thousands of words of material would just be deleted, and ominous spikes where it would be added back again. Frequently the whole article would vanish, or become so laced in rhetoric (from both sides) that it had to be overhauled completely. This is not a pretty sight.
Your blog, on the other hand, is. The new blogger template has made for some very tidy looking setups, I must say. Good work.
Here are a few users who are the problem... (they think they know everything, keep changing pages to reflect their edits and block users who correct their errors:
Gogo Dodo
Haemo
MastCell
Malcolmxl5
Snowfire51
Blotto adrift
please add to this list
You are 100% right on. Wikipedia is a worthless, steaming turd. One that is monitored 24/7 (just like you state) by kooks with biased political, social, personal, religious, etc... agendas. And while they can cite the most obscure editorial from the most insignificant, incredibly arcane website to support their opinions, 1/2 a dozen credible references are not good enough to dispute their inane babblings.
Add this one to the list too--
awadewit
Wikipedia is biased, inaccurate and unreliable - not just because "anyone can edit it" but also because of the small army of volunteer editors, who are given additional powers. Each one operates his/her own little fiefdom and seems to take delight in twisting the site in their own personal direction. One example is OhNoItsJamie. It's astonishing how long this little bozo has been allowed to terrorize Wikipedia and Wikipedia users without so much as a slap on the wrist.
The thing that makes me laugh about the discussion sections of Wikipedia entries is the misuse of the rhetoric of science. Expressions like "solid evidence" are continually thrown around. The interesting thing about the concept of evidence in Wikipedia discussions is that it appears to be in a perennial state of re-definition. When you actually produce the required evidence to justify the existence of a section in the article, they construct some whimsical excuse to declare it null and void. Then they simply reiterate the original argument: "Where's the solid evidence? I asked for solid evidence. There's no solid evidence." And we are back in square one. God how I hate arguing with neurotic, agenda-driven college students with a false sense of moral superiority and too much time in their hands.
You are 100% correct, the problem is how many people actually do think it's an "encyclopedia".
Not to mention that half the crap on there never makes sense. You'll be reading something trying to figure out exactly what it is they're trying to convey or explain. Looking for info on wikipedia is like a person asking a question and the other person answers with a question.
Just got banned from Wikipedia for Sockpuppetry. Then when it was proven that I wasn't a sockpuppet, I got banned for meating. Why did I really get banned? It gave them a chance to remove all my statements on why something should not get deleted. Amazing!
I appealed to get my account unbanned and got flamed by the people who turned down my request. So much for unbiased. They were all together taking turns denying my request to be unbanned.
Wikipedia is killing itself with the in-crowd clique of Wikinerds. My real crime? Posting from the same IP as my husband. I don't think you're allowed to be married and have a life if you're posting on Wikipedia.
Yup I have the same problem with Wikipedia and Ohnoitsjamie. I have given up.
Tell me how, on the "free encyclopedia", I can find just about any band who ever played a popular club. Yet I had an album mass released, written up in magazines, played on the radio, and they claimed none of my sources were valid. I cited everything, worked for hours making sure everything was perfect, and one of those fucking wiki-nerds claimed that it wasn't worthy, so it was all deleted. It's a joke, it's geeky guys who were picked on in high school enacting their revenge on people who go out in the world and accomplish things. Thank you Christ for the Uncyclopedia!
Whats so different with Wikipedia and the "free" media? Like everything else there ever was, Wikipedia has its flaws and its strengths. And the Wiki Nerds are doing an ok job considering the task their charged with. most of the info on Wiki is correct, and if you think its wrong, research more with different mediums, its a free tool and its a good one too.
Yeah Wikipedia's content is as good as your grammar
It’s no different than propaganda used by the National Socialist German Workers Party or Nazi Party (for the recipients of the NEA approved public school system education). If they don’t like something or someone, they make sure the world doesn’t either, even if they have to make up false information. And if you try to correct it, you will be blocked. Papers Please!
I used to think Wikipedia was okay (although was always aware the information could be unreliable) but recently have come to really hate Wikipedia. They say anyone can edit the material, but that's a blatant lie - my changes are always removed and the "information" put back to how it was. Also, they pride themselves on the site being uncensored (and no-one's against freedom of speech right?) but, in my opinion, this results in some very dodgy statements (and pictures) being submitted - and good luck trying to get them removed! Ironically, my efforts seem to be continually censored! What a joke!
Wikipedia. Wow! The founder should write another book about himself. To say, worthless, is overly kind.
Wikipedia is not worthless. I get a good chuckle from it every now and then.
It has basically devolved into a joke on the important issues. I hope the Wikipedia folks realize this, but I've seen these high falutin' people in action, and they are the most close-minded anybody can run up against.
Wikipedia certainly is a joke. A problem I have run into is that despite Wikipedia's professed desire to focus only on the provable and disregard mythology it does precisely the opposite on any topic that could be considered controversial. If there is an official story then Wikipedia will cling to it in the face of a mountain of evidence disproving it. Take 9/11 for example. I've researched 9/11 for years but anyone who has spent even an afternoon looking into the details of 9/11 can VERY quickly tell that the official myth is not only implausible but downright impossible on many levels.
From the "hijacker pilots" who couldn't even fly small propellor planes worth a damn and acted about as Islamic as Woody Allen to the skyscrapers that "collapse" at freefall rate (as admitted by both the N.I.S.T. and the 9/11 whitewash commission) which can ONLY happen in the real world in the context of a controlled demolition (which the Twin Towers and # 7 building obviously were) to Bush's Secret Service allowing him to sit there in Booker Elementary for over a half hour after being told "America is under attack", meaning they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush was not even a POSSIBLE target, to the obvious cover-up that was the rapid removal of the steel from the WTC to be shipped to China and India to be melted down, the antennae on the "airliner" that hit the South Tower, the disappearing wreckage from "Flight 77" at the Pentagon, the disappearing wreckage from "Flight 93" in Shanksville, the record amount of put orders placed on the stock of United Airlines, American Airlines and businesses in the WTC, placed a week before 9/11 and so on.
Even a stupid child, if the evidence was presented to him, would be able to deduce that 9/11 had to have been an inside job done by elements within the U.S. government and done in a manner far removed from the way the official myth has it. So either 1.the dumbasses at Wikipedia really DO believe that skyscrapers of steel and concrete can offer no more resistance to a falling mass than air, that anyone no matter how inexperienced can fly airliners like an expert, that the put orders on stock were just an enormous coincidence, that Bush is psychic et cetera; or 2.They know the official myth is a steaming pile of dung but are afraid to say it and would let their wannabe encyclopedia become nothing more than a vehicle for mythology and pro-U.S. government propaganda rather than have the balls to reveal an unpleasant truth. Either way Wikipedia sucks and shouldn't be cited as a reference for anything no matter how mundane.
Here are a few users who are the problem... (they think they know everything, keep changing pages to reflect their edits and block users who correct their errors:
Gogo Dodo
Haemo
MastCell
Malcolmxl5
Snowfire51
Blotto adrift
please add to this list ADD HAROUT 72 AS WELL
Here are a few users who are the problem... (they think they know everything, keep changing pages to reflect their edits and block users who correct their errors:
Gogo Dodo
Haemo
MastCell
Malcolmxl5
Snowfire51
Blotto adrift
please add to this list ADD HAROUT 72 AS WELL
Once I spent half an hour writing an article ( which took me three weeks of research)on a subject of which I am well aquainted with, and probably considered a leading expert in the field of, only to have it deleted by some "Mr. Peebles" of an "administrator" and/or "editor". Wikipedia is indeed a joke.
Add prolog and bertport to your list.
Also add RepublicanJacobite to the list.
A recent study found wikipedia to be more accurate than online encyclopedia brittanica. Facts good style poor. But I don't care.
Wow 24 people agrguing, you write up a whole article and base it on you own emotions. There is a difference between facts and opinion. Your dumb opinion just got reverted, get over it.
It's worth about what you pay for it.
As web facts are concerned, there is no God and Wikipedia untruths are controlled by devils incarnate. They tout toxic Aspartame as a safe food additive when it is the most dangerous and deadly known to man. Beware Wikipedia. Only disinfo scum have final edits.
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