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39 Comments
- digdugdig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A lot of you guys are contradicting yourself. Like the poster who said the following: "I like Wikipedia. It's usually thorough, give you a good overview of the subject, and an excellent jumping off point. I never expect it to be accurate, or contain everything." If you don't expect it to be accurate, why use it as a starting point at all? If you don't trust it, there really is no point to use it.
- PrezKennedy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wikipedia is a great Star Trek reference guide, and that's all I'll use it for... because if the information isn't true it's not a big deal if I'm wrong or not.
- skwhirl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
For the same reason I use google at all. It's a place where someone (or group of people) have taken the initiative to compile information relevant to the topic. More keywords to google out other sites, or find more enlightening *published* writings on the topic. - skwhirl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like Wikipedia. It's usually thorough, give you a good overview of the subject, and an excellent jumping off point. I never expect it to be accurate, or contain everything.
I've never contributed, but it's alot more useful than, say, the ODP. The Wikipedia editors are average folks rather than some 'elite' tight ass lazy crowd who use their editorship to inflate their ego. - sourbrew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you just check out the discussion page you can usually find out what is questionable. Hell you can even determine what changes were made.... but well... you know... you might like... have to... click like a link or something... i think its on the top of the page... can't be bothered with that *****.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wikip has shown some bias during the last months, think people like to publish a lie than see themselves/their organization/their companies exposed.
- Wamzlee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0See, like Digg, wikipedia can have its share of problems too.
Wikipedia is still kick ass. And Swift2, I think the swift boatting article was getting fixed up, but then they locked it because too many edits were being made or something. Atleast some changes were finally made. - Swift2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey, go through Brittanica. You'll find a ton of outdated articles on a wide variety of subjects. For every weird thing like this -- don't rely on Wikis to give you the truth about recent politics, for instance, as the flap over the "swift boating" article shows -- but on most subjects, Wikipedia is better than the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
The thing this guy didn't realize was, he could change that article himself. How old school. - Matt2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wikipedia is a great tool for getting up to speed quickly on topics of interest and recent events, but I would never rely upon it as an authoritative reference in anything that was truly important.
Old-school encyclopedias may become "outdated" or not contain information on current events, but 1) You know when the entry was dated and can determine from that whether you need to seek fresher sources and 2) You can go to news sites for the latter.
Both seem to serve a unique roll. Wikipedia will always suffer from quality control issues and enyclopedias where entries are reviewed by a board of experts will always be a bit behind the curve. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I would never rely on Wikipedia as my primary source of information on a subject. But I also wouldn't rely on any single privately-owned, ideologically biased source of information either.
Even the experts are often wrong. - NoonienSoong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0here's the news:
"Thus, to avoid future problems, Wales plans to bar anonymous users from creating new articles; only registered members will be able to do so. That change will go into effect Monday, he said, adding that anonymous users will still be able to edit existing entries." - thotpoizn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I love the part toward the end of the article, where Curry whines about being the "***** of the week"... I just wanted to yell at him, "YA THINK?!?" *LOL!*
- NidStyles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0About time, there's no end to the list of the things I've seen taht are just completely wrong on there.
- thotpoizn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 Interesting position, squeakypants - so you apparently equate a digg for this article as a digg for the moderation changes they are making? I didn't take that stance at all - I dug the article because it brought something interesting and relevant to my attention. That doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the changes - bringing them to my attention was worth the digg regardless.
- individualist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://digg.com/links/how_would_you_fix_wikipedia_
Link for discussion. - individualist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So there is a problem, but how should it be fixed?
How would you fix wikipedia? - glareice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It also depends on the article.
If I'm looking at and issue like Roe v. Wade or the war in Iraq I'm going to considerably more skeptical than if I were to look up the article on the Minuteman missile or sundials.
I love me some sundials. - pyrolyte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0In a collective mind like Wikipedia, the stories are only as correct as the information in the minds connected to it. According to Wiki-mind all the articles are correct. If you have better information add it!
- jessecrouch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0so. Seigenthaler fixed it himself.. learned how the system works. whats the problem?
wikipedia is pretty fantastic no matter what. i never considered it a perfect source of information and no one should.
of course theres a price to pay on quality when you have everyone in the world contributing. - cool4u2view, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How many good qualified people will be turned away because they now have to register...
- haochi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I read that on USA today last week.
- froGGer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So wait... Someone makes a malicious edit, it gets noticed, it then gets picked-up by the whole blogging community, eventually prompting the supposed offender to offer a public apology. How is the system broken? Looks like it works as designed...
- antispammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is why I love wikipedia: When you go to Eric Bauman's entry at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Bauman), the founder of Ebaumsworld, you get an ambiguous joke;
"People are to judge this site for themselves, and with copyrighted games such as 'Monkey Ball' posted on the money-generating site, it is clear that the site owner's theft ranges from individual artists to video game developers."
Click on 'Monkey Ball' and you will see what I mean. - speel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0.... old people ... no comment
- echocharlie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought a lot of this was addressed in http://digg.com/links/Wikipedia:_Replies_to_Common_Objections
- Tobey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0grimdotdotdot, if you really do that, I'm gonna have to kick you squaw in the nuts!
- rboothby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wikipedia's problems are easy to solve - just let the people vote on the quality of an article. If most people think it is ok, it'll get a high confidence rating. Some of Wikipedia will be really trust worthy, some of it won't - but at least you'll know. See my post at www.innovationcreators.com for more details.
- vexter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I love the last line "And now Im(curry) the ***** of the week" So freaking true. Their must always be an ***** to pound on.
- bash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ok...what the hell? dont block anonymous editors from starting up new pages you *****. what, you think there arent any good articles started up by people too lazy/apathetic to register? and you think its worth throwing the baby with the bathwater 'cause of some wrong edits here and there?
- jumjum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"And when he {Curry} discovered they weren't, he explained in an e-mail to CNET News.com, he realized he'd made a mistake.
But that "doesn't mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion of the facts and change Wikipedia to represent my viewpoint," Curry said."
You can neither agree or disagree with facts, you can only accept them or reject them. You should revolve your life around facts, instead of revolving your life around nothing but errouneous notions just because they're the flavor of the week and you're too lazy to educate yourself on all options. That is, if you give a tinker's damn about the truth.
To stredarts - if liberals had a worse name than they do now they'd have to be octeentuplets just to handle it. - Emptythought, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this is quite possibly the dumbest thing they've ever done.
a few vocal people who felt good about everyone else knowing "yea, i posted this, im awesome arent i. YEA" ruin it for all the potential anonymous contributors. this is just like there whole system of showing anonymous's ip adresses, but not registered users. and when someone pointed out they should show the ip for both there was a massive backlash from there "longtime members"
there turning something that used to encourage anonyminity, in the same way 4chan does, into something that almost forces registration like a typical discussion board. very, very lame. - M-theory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Dugg cause your Canadian
- jwalk81980, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is stupid. Plus, Curry is an assbag.
- itchyfeet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The one good thing about this is that it will stop stealth marketers from abusing the anonymity system. Oh yes, it happens, trust me - marketing companies are well ahead of the curve.
- CaughtThinking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"I would never rely on Wikipedia as my primary source of information on a subject. But I also wouldn't rely on any single privately-owned, ideologically biased source of information either.
Even the experts are often wrong."
you have got to be kidding. you strike me as the type of person that believes global warming is a myth propagated by "activist scientists" and watches fox news regularly. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I love wiki but you can't totally rely on it nor can you anything these days.
http://photo.geek2us.net
Coffee - squeakypants, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0thats *****, no digg
Wikipedia is made to be like that. It has such a high userbase that if something is deleted or added that shouldn't be it will be fixed in at most a half hour. I know it sounds funny but I'm sure many people spend their time monitoring the "changes" feed and making sure nothing is being done that shouldn't be. My friends and I used to add funny ***** to our research topics a few years back in high school, then we'd print em out and show em to our teachers. funny *****, but it would only be a few minutes before it was deleted. In fact, once I did it with Al the Great, and by the time I got to the newly edited page it was already deleted.
if you don't want to risk using wikipedia, then don't. you guys are as bad as those fockers who were bitching on the internet about how google donated to hurricane katrina. - stredarts, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"you have got to be kidding. you strike me as the type of person that believes global warming is a myth propagated by "activist scientists" and watches fox news regularly."
Researching means you have to back up your evidence from multiple sources. A well rounded citizen wouldn't limit themselves to a single source of information, they wouldn't even be aware that there may be controversy involved. Incidentally, science is built on a healthy skepticism and willingness to tear down past models. And isn't Fox a privately held privately-owned, ideologically biased source? Oh, well at least he will back up watching fox by reading the national review.
(I by no means endorse Fox or global warming bashing Neanderthals, please man don't give liberals a bad name) - coolcoolglasses, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Yeah a didnt think it could go on for ever like that. The ratio of things to put in wikipedia to the number of people willing to sit there and fix stuff for free is to wide. I stil love that site, so much good stuff to know
http://plueballs.libsyn.com/ a really funny show
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