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Wikipedia editing...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I was watching the television and saw an interesting piece on Wikipeadia, particularly on how it has been abused and edited.
The George Bush article for instance has had to be locked due to people hijacking it and altering it to say all kinds of things that are not true or proven or fact. As well as using it as a means to abuse the President of the USA.
In many instances staffers of Senators and Congressmen have edited articles to say things that are not true. One congressmans article was edited to say he was a war hero, when infact he skipped out to Canada.
I myself went on Wikipedia and looked up Paris Hilton and in the open sentence it said;
"Paris Hilton is the famous heiress who is known for eating so much Semen, she actually has it running through her veins instead of blood."
Sadly it was removed from her article a few hours later.
Can such a site, though informative, be truly accepted or used to a benefit when everything on it is both questionable and biased? Or is it all biased? Is most of it actually accurate and true?
The George Bush article for instance has had to be locked due to people hijacking it and altering it to say all kinds of things that are not true or proven or fact. As well as using it as a means to abuse the President of the USA.
In many instances staffers of Senators and Congressmen have edited articles to say things that are not true. One congressmans article was edited to say he was a war hero, when infact he skipped out to Canada.
I myself went on Wikipedia and looked up Paris Hilton and in the open sentence it said;
"Paris Hilton is the famous heiress who is known for eating so much Semen, she actually has it running through her veins instead of blood."
Sadly it was removed from her article a few hours later.
Can such a site, though informative, be truly accepted or used to a benefit when everything on it is both questionable and biased? Or is it all biased? Is most of it actually accurate and true?
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Comments
...I do check
I couldn't care less about celebrity/politician bashing on there, because like I said, that's not what I use it for.
I would stick to verifiable research works with annotated source references.
Someone has been watching The Gadget Show :yes:
It's not a definitive resource, but it is peer-reviewed and in most cases this leads to a good level of accuracy.
If you want to know about the habitat of the bald eagle, the life of Brunel or the technical specs of the starship Enterprise, Wikipedia is pretty reliable and in the case of popular culture (such as the aformentioned starship Enterprise) far more comprehensive than other online encyclopaedias such as Britannica or Encarta.
When it comes to controversial issues, such as politics or current events, the free-for-all editing nature of Wikipedia is its biggest enemy.
The article about the Madrid bombings in the Spanish language version, for instance, has had to be locked up because right wing cunts kept changing it to say ETA was behind it like the Popular Party is *still* ludicrously claiming.
So it is advisable to double-check the data, especially when it concerns such issues, but for others you probably don't need to, and there are tons of interesting stuff.
PS Those desperate enough to know what's going on in the TV series Lost can find out what happens in series 2 on Wikipedia's sister website, Lostpedia. It's full of spoliers though
I really need to know what happens in that series since i didnt watch any of season 1 and probably wont watch any of season 2, yet everyone else knows about it. I hate to not know about things, which is why i bombard myself with information from interesting to trivial...Shame it means i forget more then most people will ever know. lol
I think you've said it all really. Seems a very accurate analysis of wikipedia.
The science journal Nature compared the accuracy of Wikipedia to that of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/Nature_compares_Wikipedia_and_Britannica:
ETA: The free-for-editing nature of Wikipedia can be very frustrating at times. However, vandalism is reverted almost instantly on the vast majority of articles, as most articles are present in registered users' 'Watchlists'. I for instance have a hundred or so articles that I watch to keep an eye vandalism to revert. There are also thousands of people who watch the 'Recent Changes' list to spot vandalism and revert it quickly.