Comments on: What’s Wrong With Wikipedia?

By: brian

brian — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:36:13 +0000

The encyclopedia was always good for getting that last minute report done, whether the information was good or not. Ah the good old days thanks for the humor, to buy stupid simple system for a 6 figure income check out Buy Stupid Simple System and start earning today!

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:30:06 +0000

It´s not what it used to be. But still good, I use it. I don´t contribute anymore though.

By: Mazarin07

Mazarin07 — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:46:45 +0000

Wkipedia was a good initiative, but it became a bullshit.
I started to contribute more than three years ago in editing the Hungarian version, but now all my former sympathy and mood disappeared. This since they introduced a whole range of bureaucrats, stewards, revisers and so on. I am not against being revised, mainly for typos, but how people aged 16-20 years, without any university degree can approve the contributions of older and more experienced people? I am not against the youth, I also was young, and am not a very old man yet, but disregarding many years of studies and experience leads to nowhere.

So, my conclusion is that Wikipedia may rest in peace!

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:45:58 +0000

Why do people get so worked up about Wikipedia? I don’t know that calling people idiots really helps one’s argument much. Try taking a deep breath and making an argument free of insults

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:33:17 +0000

“I’m not a fan or believer in users policing themselves or the system, because what happens is we descend into a lord of the flies mentality with an ochlocratic system of rule. Plain and simple mobs rule defending their fifedom. Don’t believe me try and edit a wikipedia document document about a popular TV show or celebrity. It doesn’t matter if you’re edit is right or truthful it’s about having more people on your side.”

You’re pretty stupid if you think people can still edit wikipedia. As of now (and a very, very, very, very [need I say "very" more times?] long time ago) you are not allowed to edit Wikipedia. Most edits are denied. I can’t go onto Wikipedia and type in “Britney Spears is hotter than my girlfriend” on a the page about Britney Spears.

Also, you fail to notice that there ARE sources, if you want to check the truthfulness yourself, then you can go check the sources. You also fail at understanding the fact that if Encyclopedia Britannica may or may not be a credible source… Be truthful and tell me the truth about Encyclopedia Britannica? Are you basing it off the fact that it was published or are you actually looking into it to see if it is truly credible and truthful?

What, are you saying that every single person who posts on wikipedia is not educated? Wrong again. For each stupid person and stupid edit on wikipedia, there is someone to remove it and replace it with truthful content and credible content. There are many flaws in wikipedia, but you fail to notice that there are also flaws in Encyclopedia Britannica and those flows cannot be edited because an encyclopedia you already have that has already been printed onto paper cannot be edited!

“They don’t let any idiot in front of a keyboard (qualified or not) make “improvements””

You’re probably the idiot behind the keyboard who isn’t qualified to be typing . Sorry buddy, but free resources for research compared to encyclopedias with frozen information is win to fail. (wikipedia being made of win)

By: John Lane

John Lane — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 03:45:55 +0000

A nice thing about wikipedia is that it is built around the idea of an encyclopedia that everyone can edit. An annoying thing about wikipedia is that it doesn’t live up to that idea. One reason why: many of the interesting articles are watched over and guarded by little groups of self-important, intolerant, tyrants who mercilessly and swiftly erase any edits or contributions which they don’t judge to meet their idea of what is important, or which disagree with their POV. Numerous times I’ve taken some time to contribute a bit of interesting, informative, and true matter to wkipedia, only to have it almost immediately “reverted” by these self-appointed guardians, who in their comments evince a breathtaking arrogance towards those whose work they trash – which usually means those who do not share their POV, who post to wikipedia less often than they (i.e. who have not, like them, seemingly dedicated their lives to the fierce guarding of their chosen, cherished articles), or who may (or often may not) have transgressed wikipedia’s self-important and super-serious “guidelines”.

To put this another way, too many of these petty despots of wikipedium — or should I call them trolls of wikidom — are too quick to judge and to trash the contributions of others, whereas they should in most cases restrict themselves to editing same. (I am not talking here of correcting or deleting genuinely erroneous material — I have no complaint about that.)

From what I have observed with wikipedia, I conclude that among its editors are the most humorless people on earth. Why they congregate around wikipedia is a question I can’t answer. But they seem to be driven by the conviction that there is a “right” wikipedia entry for each topic, and that they and they alone have the wisdom to determine what it shall contain. The fact is there are different points of view about things, and wikipedia, instead of purporting to ban POV, should instead permit the different points of view to be articulated. Relevant information that people contribute should not be deleted.

But this is the nature and these are the flaws of wikipedia, and they will not change.

By: Cre8tive Flow » Blog Archive » Is The Web “Dumbing” Everything Down?

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:12:40 +0000

[...] I am increasingly seeing examples of Internet phenomenon being unfairly compared to an offline “equivalents”. Bloggers being compared to journalists, Wikipedia being compared to an outdated notion of an encyclopaedia and comments compared to formalized civil meetings. [...]

By: Heather Paquinas

Heather Paquinas — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:08:43 +0000

Graywolf, who cares about truthfullness? SEO is what matters.

There’s plenty of lies in academia; google and wikipedia are academic. Haven’t you read the google pagerank citation paper?

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 13:18:30 +0000

“I’m not a fan or believer in users policing themselves”
I am a big fan of results. Wikipedia has produced an amazing product, that fulfills my needs on a regular basis with enough quality and accuracy to justify the price they ask. An infinitely better paid solution is not one I want nor need.

People forget that choice only exists sometimes. I bought crappy gloves because I was cold right there and then. A perfect pair of gloves bought at a “better” store that wasn’t available wouldn’t have solved my immediate problem. My choice was buy or be cold. The issue of longterm value was the motivating factor.

The economics of price are fascinating, and $2 to be warm for a few hours might be a fair price to a cold man. Ditto a $10 beer for a horny man, and that is a worse deal, because the same beer that costs about $1 in a case, and you probably drink 10. That is $90 extra!

As always, the bard said it best, even when discussing the economics of price: “A horse a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”

The problems with wikipedia are not, IMHO, a big enough problem to justify disliking it, nor to stop using it, especially when one’s choice is wikipedia or nothing.

By: graywolf

graywolf — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 18:54:42 +0000

buying a $2 pair of gloves that broke 2 days later seems like a waste of $2 to me.

While I’m sure not everything in Encyclopedia Britannica is true, I’m confident in the belief that they have gone to reasonable lengths to make sure it is. They don’t let any idiot in front of a keyboard (qualified or not) make “improvements”.

I’m not a fan or believer in users policing themselves or the system, because what happens is we descend into a lord of the flies mentality with an ochlocratic system of rule. Plain and simple mobs rule defending their fifedom. Don’t believe me try and edit a wikipedia document document about a popular TV show or celebrity. It doesn’t matter if you’re edit is right or truthful it’s about having more people on your side.

here’s a favorite article of mine from the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Quinlan/gaming