I'd only trust Wikipedia to be accurate when talking about weeaboo shiat.

Mr Guy: It's almost like he firmly believes that being right, on the internet, is sufficient, without being able to express himself or follow the rules of a public forum.

In other words, he's an academic. If he had any social skills or common sense to go along with his brilliance, he wouldn't have had years to spend researching the Haymarket riots.

One Bad Apple: The people who run wikipedia are out and out frauds and cowards when it comes to certain subjects. Bullshido.net lost it's page just because someone on wikipedia is a nutriding fanboi of Frank Dux (new window) Fark wikipedia.

Bullshido is full of self-important farkwits who think they are the self-appointed police of the martial arts world and they alone decide the legitimacy of any martial arts training.

Frank Dux is unquestionably a fraud (so is Ashida Kim), but Bullshido is not as important as they think they are.

Fark Bullshido.

timujin: dumbgai: Just because you wrote a book expressing a new opinion on something doesn't make it true.

well, there was that whole "verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress" part...

Then you say, "This is what people have said, however, looking at the trial [citation] blah blah blah"

You don't just go, BALEETED.

Wikipedia is useful in its convenience.
Nothing less, nothing more.
If you want real information, go to the farking library.

jjwars1: And this is why we don't cite Wiki-anything as reliable sources, and any reputable teacher/professor/ or educated person would know better than to cite Wikipedia as a source.

Heh. I had a professor link two Wikipedia pages as mandatory class readings.

/a student promptly swapped the text on the two pages, with find-and-replace for the authors' names

/hotter than Angela in a nurses outfit...

Talondel: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a peer-reviewed journal.

[Citation needed]

/seriously, it's not really an encyclopedia. It's an extension of Googling.
//An encyclopedia has people that take responsibility for incorrect information.

Talondel: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a peer-reviewed journal. It collects the majority opinions of experts and cites to them. It does not and cannot weigh the veracity of opposing views and decide which are "right." To do that would require that Wikipedia employ experts capable of performing an adequate peer review on every possible topic, which would be impossible. Instead, Wikipedia cites to sources that are peer reviewed.

If he wants his views on the issue cited on the page, instead of deleting the portions he considers to be inaccurate, he needs to add a line stating something along the lines of "Recent research in the area suggests an alternate viewpoint" and then cite his article. Wikipedia may or may not let that kind of edit stand, but a cite that provides additional information is much more likely to stand than an edit that deletes an old citation and replaces it with a new one that disagrees with it.

So to the author I say 1) Learn the difference between an encyclopedia and a peer reviewed journal and 2) learn how to work within the confines of the system you are attempting to utilize. Both of those should be easy to do for someone with a Ph.D.

I've seen enough examples where the sources it sites are dead links that I wouldn't be comfortable saying it "collects the majority opinions of experts". Makes me wonder why they don't have a bot that periodically checks the links to sources and if it comes back as page not found the section that is supposed to be supported by that link should be flagged.

Elandriel: My college has expressly forbidden anyone from using Wikipedia as a source and has a standing policy of marking a 0 on any paper or project that cites it. Wikipedia cannot be considered reputable or scholarly because of these very kinds of individuals, and unforutnately it isn't a case of the few ruining it for the many, it is a case of most editors and admins have a serious chip on their shoulder and don't mind letting you know it.

I thought all encyclopedias, as a rule, were not considered credible sources for scholarly writing. At least, I've never read any actual, published papers that quote "Encyclopedia Britannica."

DarnoKonrad: Wikipedia is not a place where you put your independent research. As far as I know, that's always been the policy.

Yup. Wikipedia's got 99 problems, but this ain't one of them.

Dude should have explained it all on a talk page, pointed to his own peer-reviewed research and book, and let the editors have at it. J. Random Dude says he's an expert and wants to correct an error that is also in most history books? Yeah, talk first; edit second.

Lsherm: Much like the communists, Wiki editors only allow their "approved" history in the books.

Well what do you expect from those libtards. Oh wait ...

E=mc2? Not on Conservapedia

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19303-emc2-not-on-conservapedia . html

clip - It seems that the folks at Conservapedia - a sort of conservative alternative to the more familar online encyclopedia Wikipedia - are not fans of Einstein's most famous theory, general relativity. In fact, they view it as a far-reaching liberal conspiracy.

Something my wife does when researching her history papers is look up the topics on Wikipedia and then check out the books listed as sources for the article. This allows her to come up with her own opinions and give her a starting point for her works cited list. That in addition to our school library and British Online Archives, most of her documents are covered.

Talondel: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a peer-reviewed journal.

Sure it is - the only problem is your peers are everyone.

/and Wikipedia is a wonderful illustration of why direct democracy is a bad idea - it would just turn into some Kafkaesque (Wikiesque?) bureaucracy.

This has been a problem for awhile. As an example, Wikipedia used to have this huge, and very informative, entry on Macbeth the historical figure which also mentioned or linked to articles about lots of fiction and non-fiction works on the subject. Not only was it extensive, but it was even one of their "featured" articles held up as an example of what a wiki entry should be like for quite awhile. Then, around 2007, there suddenly started to be a large number of very active and nationalistic English editors who tore through the entry with little more than weight of numbers and the argument that there was no such thing as Scotland before England ran it. Kind of pissed me off at the time as I've always found the historical Macbeth an interesting figure, but I'm sure the same folks were responsible for similar biased edits on Irish, Welsh, and Cornish entries.

Sorry, but I agree with Wikipedia here. If 99% of sources say X and 1% say Y, then the 1% shouldn't rewrite the article so that it says their version is true.

It sounded to me like the Wiki Overlords were telling the guy that it would be fine if he change the article to say that most sources state that no evidence was offered, but that some sources say this and that and the other. What would have been so farking hard about that?

There are often differing opinions on things. Wikipedia shouldn't be a battleground where first Group writes their version and then Group B writes theirs, and back and forth they go. If there are differing opinions, then the article should say there are differing opinions.

Talondel: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a peer-reviewed journal. It collects the majority opinions of experts and cites to them. It does not and cannot weigh the veracity of opposing views and decide which are "right." To do that would require that Wikipedia employ experts capable of performing an adequate peer review on every possible topic, which would be impossible. Instead, Wikipedia cites to sources that are peer reviewed.

If he wants his views on the issue cited on the page, instead of deleting the portions he considers to be inaccurate, he needs to add a line stating something along the lines of "Recent research in the area suggests an alternate viewpoint" and then cite his article. Wikipedia may or may not let that kind of edit stand, but a cite that provides additional information is much more likely to stand than an edit that deletes an old citation and replaces it with a new one that disagrees with it.

So to the author I say 1) Learn the difference between an encyclopedia and a peer reviewed journal and 2) learn how to work within the confines of the system you are attempting to utilize. Both of those should be easy to do for someone with a Ph.D.

Came here for that, left contented. The guy has a minority opinion, and instead of presenting it as an alternate opinion, he deleted the majority opinion (read "vandalized") and replaced it with his minority opinion, instead of doing what you're supposed to do on Wikipedia and present it as an alternate viewpoint. His citations would've stood up to review, and the editors wouldn't have had to whack him for summarily replacing content. But, instead, he thought that if he was an asshole, over and over again, well, they would just have to relent, right?

Based on his article, he:
1. Replaced existing content with his own content.
2. When his changes were reversed, a Wikipedia editor asked him to read the rules, specifically regarding civility.
3. Immediately attempted to repeat those changes again.
4. When his changes were then reversed, a Wikipedia editor then asked him to read the rules, this time regarding primary sources.
5. The chucklehead again attempted to repeat those changes.
6. The changes were again reversed, and he was cautioned regarding vandalism.
7. Pause two years, until his book on the subject comes out.
8. Attempted to repeat changes again.
9. When his changes were reversed yet again, a Wikipedia editor then asked him, yet again, to read the rules, this time regarding verifiability and undue weight.
10. He then wrote a long-winded whiny rant on how all of this was unfair to him, because he knows he's right.

That's the gist of it. They're not telling him he can't write a minority opinion - they're telling him he can't replace the majority opinion with his own. He doesn't like that, because he's right, after all, and so he's throwing a fit.

It took weeks for Sriracha sauce to be properly credit to Sriracha Panich as original products. This is common knowledge shiat in Thailand. Keep getting removed by someone thinking if it's not written in numerous sources in English, despite massive fact on its side. And it's already edited out some months ago, I gave up.

Elandriel: My college has expressly forbidden anyone from using Wikipedia as a source and has a standing policy of marking a 0 on any paper or project that cites it. Wikipedia cannot be considered reputable or scholarly because of these very kinds of individuals, and unforutnately it isn't a case of the few ruining it for the many, it is a case of most editors and admins have a serious chip on their shoulder and don't mind letting you know it.

Yeah. However, I find relying on websites for scholarly papers generally worrisome. There are good places like JSTOR and LexisNexis that are wonderful stores of primary sources, but when most universities have such great libraries, why rely on the internet for secondary research?

P.S. As for writing your own book and then citing it as the source of your facts... There's a lot of BS in books. There are books that give breathless accounts of UFO encounters. I would HOPE that the Wikipedia entry notes that there is much disagreement about whether aliens have visited Earth. If someone who wrote a book about UFOs were allowed to write a completely one-sided UFO article for Wikipedia just because he has some books to his name, I think everyone would be singing a different tune.

I'm not saying that this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm saying that writing a couple books doesn't mean that he automatically becomes the world's foremost scholar on the Haymarket riot, able to rewrite the Wikipedia entry with the truth as he sees it.

Wikipedia is extremely useful for what it's supposed to be - settling arguments that start in bars. The kinds of arguments that start, "No, that guy was in that TV series...."

Kazan: i stopped contributing to wikipedia like 5 years ago over this shiat.. people are just catching on now?


Dramatic crap like this is also why i gave up on contributing to Wikipedia, it's part of the same reason I think Bullshido is crap too.

Kinda CSB time:

About 7 years ago or so, I decided to write a Wikipedia article for a small martial arts system I studied. The founder had written several books on martial arts and dozens of articles for various martial arts magazines, and he'd been teaching for several decades a style he'd created, and had a half-dozen or so schools in this part of the country founded by his students and using his curriculum and methods.

I thought it met the notability criteria for Wikipedia, since I could find a half-dozen newspaper articles talking about the school, not to mention the various martial arts books the founder had written that mentioned/discussed his style, and some ancillary mentions I could dig up in other publications (like the Alumni Association magazine of the founder's alma mater mentioning him as a successful alumni and briefly listing his accomplishments including founding that school).

So, I worked hard on the article, and after dozens and dozens of edits I had what I thought was a decent, but kinda basic article about the school and style.

Two problems:

One, a disgruntled former student who had a personal conflict with the founder decided to come on there and try to turn it into an attack piece "debunking" the school and calling it, and the founder, fraudulent, and later slapping "citation needed" tags on virtually every sentence. He was also trying to reword everything with "weasel words", to use the Wiki slang, to make everything sound more dubious (like: "suchandsuch claims that he teaches this style based on what he claims is the. . ."

Going back and forth with this asshole drained a lot of enthusiasm, as we edit-warred back and forth for months, as he used a slew of IP addresses and alts. I learned wiki rules of notability, procedure, citation and such very well to back up what I was doing with policy and guideline by mentioning it on the talk page, and he'd just bulldoze past and change things anyway by saying he was just putting down the truth or just trying to expose somebody who was a liar, ect.

Around the same time, some dumbfark over at Bullshido ran across the article and decided it wasn't up to their standards of "legitimacy". Since the founder is a minister and teaches the school from a religious perspective, they started dogpiling on it as some cult or religiously motivated scam, and the fact that the school doesn't participate in MMA fighting seemed to seal the deal to them. I only found out about this thread because I was googling the school name for any other websites and ran across that discussion. I registered, went in there, and posted originally trying to debunk a lot of outright falsehoods they had "assumed" based on prejudices and narrow viewpoints.

Being civil, polite, rational, just seemed to make them angrier, as the Bullshido boneheads acted like every stereotypical 12-year-old boy on the internet, making horribly misspelled insults regarding religion and sexual orientation. I actually had several members challenge me to duels, wanting me to drive to their dojo to fight them to "prove" the "effectiveness" of my training in this school and saying they would stop trash-talking the school I studied at if I could beat them in a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle fight, and if I wouldn't fight them or if I lost I would just prove that the school I trained at was a "McDojo" scam.

I started out wanting to share knowledge about a subject that had done good things in my life and for the lives of those around me, and came away from it bitter about wikipedia and having learned there is a cesspool of dumbfarks on the internet who fancy themselves the self-appointed guardians of what "real" martial arts are, and have decided that only MMA/UFC is sufficiently "legitimate".

You know, this reminds me, those science types keep telling us that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but I disagree. I believe it is the Sun that revolves around the Earth. And I'll prove it, too, once I get funding for a rocketship to fly to the Sun, which is a mere 2 million miles away. It's a straight shot, so it'll take no time at all.

Heron: There are good places like JSTOR and LexisNexis that are wonderful stores of primary sources, but when most universities have such great libraries, why rely on the internet for secondary research?

Eh? I'm not sure I've seen any primary sources on JSTOR. They're almost all academic articles (i.e., secondary sources).

dumbgai: Just because you wrote a book expressing a new opinion on something doesn't make it true

A statement that "no evidence was presented", or even the now present "no credible evidence was presented", is obviously slanted and dubious on its face.

The problem with the Wikipedia model for editing politically charged topics is that people holding certain worldviews will be highly motivated to attain positions of authority to where they can present things as they would like them to be presented.

/not sure where I was going with #3..

People who think wikipedia is a viable medium for truth are the same ones who forward stupid e-mails and Facebook posts that have been proven to be urban legends. "I read it on the the internet so it must be true."

The wIkipedia will also disallow information if it makes people uncomfortable. One of the towns I lived in as a child has a documented racial history in which free blacks were run out of town on a rail, but any time that is listed in the wikipedia article, it is removed. They have allowed a link to a source article, but they won't allow the actual information in the article. Link (new window)

SnakeLee: Someone needs to go to the Amazon pages of his books and then write really inaccurate reviews and give them one star. He has no reviews yet so it should get him pretty worked up.


That's not trolling, it's being a shiatty, loathsome person. You'd be damaging his reputation and part of his livelihood ... and why? For the lulz?

And now Wikipedia will step in and make it correct.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease after all.

Trivia Jockey: That is a bunch of BS. Wikipedia needs a policy change if that's true.

Well its what a lot of us have been saying for a couple of years now, they present certain accepted norms as facts when there is very little data to back it up and if you dare present any dissension on certain hot button items, such as climate change then you will be shot down as uneducated, even if you put up a verifieable fact of the issue from hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Wiki is used as a reference point but it is not 100% accurate.

Author doesn't understand how Wikipedia works, tries to buck the system, gets shot down, whines about it.

News at 11.

As an aside, the premise that "the trial lasted six weeks and there were court-appointed experts there, therefore there was conclusive evidence" is illogical.

As another aside, "published in a peer-reviewed journal" does not mean "consensus view". "I wrote a book" also does not mean "consensus view". Even among *gasp* experts.

My kid got assigned a project at school to research an Australian historical figure who was not notable enough to be in Brittanica. By the time he got to Wikipedia, the other kids in the grade 4 class had got to the article. I had to explain that no, I don't think a 19th century Australian aboriginal politician had laserbeams coming out of his eyes and fought Batman when he wanted to establish the site of the batcave in Melbourne.

Still it was sort of heartwarming to know that 9 year olds had already figured out how to crap up an obscure wikipedia article to mess up the homework of their classmates.

One researcher several years ago was lazy and writes down a sloppy half-assed sentence about a historical event, that half-assed sentence is repeated numerous times by other lazy researchers.


Years later a meticulous researcher comes along and provides evidence based on public record that the first lazy-assed researcher was incorrect.

Wikipedia editors swarm on meticulous researcher for espousing a "minority view," and somehow think they're making the case for Wikipedia?

I plan on printing this article for my young daughter.

When she hit's high school, I'm going to whip this out and make her read it as we walk on over to the library for more info.

Andulamb: Sorry, but I agree with Wikipedia here. If 99% of sources say X and 1% say Y, then the 1% shouldn't rewrite the article so that it says their version is true.

I sort of agree for most things. Then again if you have a verifiable source that is irrefutable though most remain as yet unaware of the change then why not? Like say someone discovers some letters or a suppressed confession on the topic this guys is flogging. Can we then still not change it?

Utter failure of understanding how Wikipedia works. You want something changed, you bring it up on the Talk page and start sucking up to the people who have designated themselves as the 'caretakers' of certain pages through the various 'groups'.


Elandriel
My college has expressly forbidden anyone from using Wikipedia as a source and has a standing policy of marking a 0 on any paper or project that cites it. Wikipedia cannot be considered reputable or scholarly because of these very kinds of individuals, and unforutnately it isn't a case of the few ruining it for the many, it is a case of most editors and admins have a serious chip on their shoulder and don't mind letting you know it.

Good. Wikipedia isn't a source. It's a collection of sources. If you're going to cite a 'fact' from a Wikipedia page, what you really ought to do is read the real source and cite that. And if it's not cited, or if the source is not credible? Well then it's a pretty good farking thing you checked it out!

My hobby is to subtly vandalize wikipedia pages so small inaccuracies become a commonly held misconception.
Especially for video games and movies.

//Did you know Jayne Cobb's mother was hoping to have a girl rather than a boy? true story, read it on wikipedia.

shoegaze99: SnakeLee: Someone needs to go to the Amazon pages of his books and then write really inaccurate reviews and give them one star. He has no reviews yet so it should get him pretty worked up.


That's not trolling, it's being a shiatty, loathsome person. You'd be damaging his reputation and part of his livelihood ... and why? For the lulz?

Because he dares to point out wikipedia's flaws when its used as a tool of discrediting those who do not accept their ideals.