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wikipedia drawback

2007-10-11 13:22:50

Re:Wikiphobia

(Score:5, Informative)

by Aladrin (926209) on Thursday October 11, @10:17AM (#20939497)

I avoid it for another reason. I tend to enter into debates with others online, and if they don't say 'and don't cite wikipedia' beforehand, then they say it afterwards. The knowledge there is totally useless in a debate simply because it can be edited by anyone, regardless of what they actually know. Now, I use it as a last resort to look for information that might lead me to something a little more substantial.

Unfortunately, I can't even argue with them because it says things like "However, extreme summer humidity often boosts the heat index to around 110 F (43 C)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami,_Florida [wikipedia.org] Try as I might, I could find no information on historic heat indexes in Miami on the web. The best I could find was high-low temperature and humidity charts, and since the heat index deals with the temperature and humidity at any given moment, it isn't very useful for calculating the heat index after the fact. Especially if you want to find out how often it hits 110.

Just about everything I've looked up on Wikipedia in the last month has been someone's personal view with no facts to sustain it. As a starting point for research, I can't even say it's a good idea because things are stated as fact that are personal observation (anecdotes) or opinion, and that can quickly taint your view of whatever you are searching and lead you down a bad path.

Posted: 2007775@825.04

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stranger

Re:It's accuracy, on the other hand

(Score:5, Interesting)

by Applekid (993327) on Thursday October 11, @10:19AM (#20939553)

Thing is, dishonest articles and misleading text won't get fixed. I gave up contributing to Wikipedia when I had my editing slammed left and right from "regulars" selectively applying rules in order to shut out the unpopular. "No original research" only applies when your assertions are against consensus, regardless of how accurate, "You don't own the article" only applies if you're outnumbered by a bunch of others that do own the article, "Bias" only when you're striving for uniformity.

I mean, I'm not even talking about abortion or rape or anything... look at the fight over "XOR" vs. "Exclusive-OR". Sheesh.

[wikitruth.info] has some info... but don't take it's word on it. Give editing Wikipedia a shot and see the shitstorm it can raise.

Posted: 2007775@836.60

stranger

I partly blame the "validators"

(Score:5, Interesting)

by Kinwolf (945345) on Thursday October 11, @10:23AM (#20939605)

Personally, I stopped adding contribution when two articles I wrote(about 2 comic books series that where published by Dark Horse years ago)where marked for deletion. When I asked why, the validator answered that he did a google search and found nothing on the subject, so it was not worthy of being there. So there you have it, if it's not on google, it does not exist and has no business being in an encyclopedia where knowledge is supposed to be kept. With such an attitude, I saw no reason to continue adding stuff there.

Posted: 2007775@838.62

stranger

Re:I partly blame the "validators"

(Score:5, Informative)

by i kan reed (749298) on Thursday October 11, @12:26PM (#20941513)

Here's the problem... If it cannot be found by google and you(the original creator of the article) do not give print references that can be verified by other means... there's no evidence that what you're saying is not made up. Sure, longtime wikipedia editors are not trusting, but dealing with the number of advertisement and vanity articles(such as people who write articles about a "comic strip" they "published" in a high school newspaper for 2 months. You can't just take some anonymous person on the internet's word for things or else some of the other major objections with wikipedia(bad fact checking, etc) will be borne out. Get some ISBNs and try a lexisnexus search for the comic. Learn to use wikipedia's citation system before creating your first article. This is the advice I give to everyone who gets their pet topic article on wikipedia deleted. Try it. It works.

Posted: 2007775@849.57

stranger

Re:There's nothing left that wikki doesn't know!

(Score:5, Insightful)

by ultranova (717540) on Thursday October 11, @01:00PM (#20941985)

Thats because there's nothing left that wikki doesn't know!

Of course there are, many things. However, the Wikipedia editors have, in their blind rush to become a "real" encyclopedia, put up barriers of "notability". In practice this means that articles often get deleted if the editor doesn't consider them important ("notable").

Dead-tree encyclopedias have a bar of notability because they have limited size and primitive searching facilities (alphapetical order), so a non-notable article takes space which could be better used on something more important, while increasing the size makes the whole thing more expensive and harder to search. Wikipedia has in practice limitless size and advanced searching facilities (internal links and full text search), so adding an article always adds value.

There is the fundamental difference between online and dead-tree encyclopedias; it is a pity Wikipedia hasn't quite grasped this.