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Some Quality Control at Wikipedia

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Aug 25, 2009.

  1. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Remove all ads!
    Evidently, this is supposed to help improve the accuracy of at least living people with Wiki entries.

    I'm not sure it will help. Thoughts?

    Wiki QC
     
    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Aug 25, 2009
    #1
  2. Blades of Vanatar

    Blades of Vanatar Vanatar will rise again Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    It might help a little, but anyone can join and edit still, so whats the difference? It just makes it a little harder to vandalize the site, but it won't stop the fools who do it...
     
    Blades of Vanatar, Aug 25, 2009
    #2
  3. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I don't think it's a bad idea. Some entries are really irresponsible and clearly vindictive. However, this may call the impartiality of Wikipedia into question for some people, as they will likely see it as "factual screening," serving only to bolster the view of some that it has a liberal bias. No doubt people will continue trying to change Obama's page to more closely reflect...well, this crap, and an editor that takes himself seriously will have no choice but to reject such a submission.
     
    Death Rabbit, Aug 25, 2009
    #3
  4. Silvery

    Silvery I won't pretend to be your friend coz I'm just not ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran

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    In the UK there's a kids programme called 'In the Night Garden' look it up on Wiki. Some people take shows for 2 year olds WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too seriously!
     
    Silvery, Aug 25, 2009
    #4
  5. NOG (No Other Gods)

    NOG (No Other Gods) Going to church doesn't make you a Christian

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    I doubt it'll help much, if at all. Wiki's even had some trouble with employees staying unbiassed before, and the restrictions on these editors won't really keep anyone out. It may help limit, or at least slow down, the wanton defacing of some pages, but I don't think it'll really help with serious accuracy any.
     
    NOG (No Other Gods), Aug 25, 2009
    #5

  6. Nataraja Gems: 12/31
    Latest gem: Moonstone

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    Oh man, its just going to make it harder for me to repeatedly change 'Aretha Franklin' to 'Urethra Franklin'. Never get to have any fun :(
     
    Nataraja, Aug 26, 2009
    #6
  7. NOG (No Other Gods)

    NOG (No Other Gods) Going to church doesn't make you a Christian

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    Aww. It's ok, Nataraja. If you're a registered user for more than 3 days, you can become an editor, too. Then you can change Aretha to Urethra all you want. :nuts:
     
    NOG (No Other Gods), Aug 26, 2009
    #7
  8. Ziad

    Ziad I speak in rebuses Veteran

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    I'm a bit surprised they've narrowed it down to only "living people". True, they're the ones most targeted by hooliganism (especially if they happen to be American politicans on involved in politics) but I never considered hooliganism to be Wikipedia's biggest problem, but rather the much more subtle inaccuracies or plainly false "facts" that plague most pages (not just ones on people) and that you'd never pick up unless you knew about the topic. If I read "Barack O'Bama is a muslim fundamentalist" or "Bush was behind the September 11 attacks" I'll just laugh and ignore it. If I'm reading some obscure page on quantum physics I'll usually take everything they say as truth if it's written in a "professional" way. I think mistakes or falsehoods of the second type are much more dangerous and they're the ones Wikimedia should be focusing on.
     
    Ziad, Aug 26, 2009
    #8
  9. T2Bruno

    T2Bruno The only source of knowledge is experience Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    True Ziad, but the second type are eventually corrected and only affect a person who decides to use wiki as a valid reference (an intelligent person should, by now, know wiki is only a reasonable starting point).

    The first type, hooliganism, can be damaging to a person and downright slanderous.
     
    T2Bruno, Aug 26, 2009
    #9
  10. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    That's a great point. I usually find that when you click on the links in the bibliography you get a better idea of the topic than from reading the topic iteself.
     
    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Aug 26, 2009
    #10
  11. coineineagh

    coineineagh I wish for a horde to overrun my enemies Resourceful Adored Veteran

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    [​IMG] a lot of the errors in information appear to be done by people with a vested interest. I remember reading about the Probo Koala incident, where 10 people in Ivory Coast died from toxins that the ship had dumped overboard. The information on wikipedia was altered shortly after the incident, and investigation uncovered that the responsible dutch company had made the alterations, to improve their image.
    I guess wikipedia will always be at risk of being used in propaganda wars.:sosad:
     
    coineineagh, Aug 26, 2009
    #11
  12. Ziad

    Ziad I speak in rebuses Veteran

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    Oh absolutely. But likewise you'd expect an intelligent person to take slanderous comments on wiki with a pinch of salt :)

    The second type actually have a far lesser chance of being corrected, I think. Try to insert slander about anyone's favourite celebrity (which will be just about every single one of them) and you'll automatically have the fans demanding a revert or an edit. Insert an incorrect factual information on a non-hot topic and it'll linger there for a long time, precisely because people who do know the topic well (and who therefore are the most likely to pick up the mistake) don't (or as you said shouldn't) use Wikipedia as a true reference.
     
    Ziad, Aug 26, 2009
    #12
  13. joacqin

    joacqin Confused Jerk Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I think Wikipedia is great if you know what it is. Never really run across blatantly biased or even outright wrong articles. In some ways it is better checked than "normal" encyclopedia. As long as you are aware of how it works and that you maybe shouldnt use it as a reference on an academic paper I think it is one of the absolutely best things on the internet.
     
    joacqin, Aug 26, 2009
    #13
  14. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    This is why I only use Wookipedia for my information.
     
    Saber, Aug 26, 2009
    #14
  15. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    There are literally thousands of Wikipedia editors that practically live on there 24/7 and finding topics that are so disinteresting that they don't have at least a couple of self-appointed guardians watching over them constantly is very hard. So the whole fear of mass editing is really unwarranted; the editors who style themselves as the guardians of certain topics inevitably edit out anything that they don't like or agree with and there's practically nothing that a regular user can do about it. I've had first-hand experience with this in several cases and it's really ugly. However, overall, the information in Wikipedia has been of use and quite accurate way more than 9 times out of 10 in my experience, so I still see it as a great resource. It's just a shame that people with no lives (and more often than not very little knowledge about the topics in question) can lord over certain topics and keep reverting any edits into infinity - because they know that any normal user will tire of constantly checking whether they've reverted their edits two hours later, but to someone who spends most of their days on Wikipedia it just means an extra click and they "win".

    Btw, Wikipedia has had various level of protection from edits available for certain "high-risk" articles for a long time, so it's not like everything's always been open to edits. Many articles are completely locked down (meaning only approved editors can change them), while others are only semi-protected, but that just means that it takes up to a couple of hours before an editor will revert all edits that they don't happen to agree with. So I'm not really sure what that article is going on about - this isn't new at all.

    (As an aside, there's only one Wikipedia, which is the big encyclopaedia that we're discussing. However, there are dozens of thousands of wikis, but a wiki is simply a web app using the same or similar software as Wikipedia, but can be on any topic under the sun, from Star Wars to The Witcher to a parody of Wikipedia and so on. So if you write "wiki" but actually mean Wikipedia, you've got it wrong.)
     
    Taluntain, Aug 27, 2009
    #15
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