0
11

[–] tar-x 0 points 11 points (+11|-0) ago 

Seeing something like this, does anyone else worry about Wikipedia like I do?

I'm not just talking about the special agendas that everyone knows are present. Wikipedia is dangerous because it can be changed so fast. Anyone not doing serious research trusts Wikipedia. The facts and content available in an article can change in a split second, with no one checking to see what it said before the change. This is a serious problem because Wikipedia may one day be a definitive source of human knowledge such that anything not mentioned there might as well not exist. I worry this could lead to powerful entities rewriting history in a much more effective way than before, 1984-style changing the story mid-sentence, or article in this case. With books, you have to destroy all the old copies to erase what they said. With Wikipedia, you just have to erase some computer memory. Wikipedia is a potential Library of Alexandria just waiting to be torched.

0
5

[–] rwbj 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

Many, if not the majority, of university classes ban Wikipedia as a source even at the undergraduate level. It's hardly like only people doing serious research don't know its full of poo. It's in no way definitive, it's simply winning by default as the alternatives at the moment are biased by design, whereas Wikipedia is biased only because it turns out the sort of population willing to spend hours a day working in a 0 barrier to entry popularity contest driven project - without pay... well whodathunk you end up with petulant social media warriors as your primary 'employees' ?

0
0

[–] 1moar ago 

Well put. I laugh anytime someone tries to use them as a reliable source. It's an interesting project but you might as well read the tabloids for all the good it does. At a high level for non-controversial stuff it's handy to get a bit of info or something; but if you're going to cite statistics and the like, you better use a more reliable source.

0
0

[–] derram ago 

Considering what they did to #GamerGate with it, yeah.

You get on the wrong side and you'll be known as a monster, even if no one can name a single event that's been interrupted by a bomb threat that your group is supposedly well known for sending.

And, I mean, who cares if 3 of your own events have received verifiable bomb threats. See, the wrong media outlet reported on that so there's no reliable sources for us to add that to the article.

Yeah, you might not be able to use it in a university, but it's great for isolating a group of undesirables from the public.

0
7

[–] NorBdelta 0 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago 

It sounds s like a hopeless battle, you go up against an administrator and it doesn't matter who is right, the Admin always wins

1
1

[–] whisky_cat 1 point 1 point (+2|-1) ago 

According to Wikipedia three skyscrapers collapsed and vaporized in entirety due to gravity

[–] [deleted] 0 points 16 points (+16|-0) ago 

[Deleted]

0
0

[–] mort ago 

Do you have any examples of scientific wikipedia articles which present a one sided view, which you think is wrong?

0
2

[–] rwbj 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I'd assume he's likely referencing climate change given that this is Voat in spite of the the fact that there are two different pages that exclusively discuss, at length, climate change denial.

I've no love for Wikipedia, but I do think the scientific topics are still at least decent introductions to topics. They have barriers to entry in the form of knowledge so you generally avoid the low brow social media warriors taking over the pages.

0
4

[–] gurlat 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago  (edited ago)

I've tried correcting simple spelling and grammar mistakes. Things like "he was the the hedmaster".

My corrections were deleted in minutes with no explanation.

As you've said, people stake-out certain articles as their territory, and refuse to let others change them in any way. Even a minor change requires a full on internet discussion, and like most normal people, it's simply not worth 2 hours of my time to correct the spelling of one word on a Wikipedia article I don't give a shit about.

0
1

[–] CloudYeller 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

I had the same issue with a bunch of grammar and spelling edits. The explanation I got from other editors (with super high edit counts) was this. (paraphrased)

Your edit was reverted because it counts as an "edit" for the person who reverted it. The higher your edit count the higher you are in the unofficial power structure of wikipedia. If your edit count gets high enough you can become an admin/mod and really start getting power over other users.

That was back in ~2005. I never tried to make another edit. I simply have better things to do with my time then to play these petty bullshit games.

0
1

[–] 0x5f3759df 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Wikipedia is pretty useless for anything but basic, well known and uncontested facts. That's not so strange, since it is essentially an encyclopedia. That said, this article is worthless.