I was a wiki editor doc. It is worse than "anyone can write anything". The staff, the contributors are all volunteers, and the committees that make rulings are not only volunteers but close knit cabal. I wrote or rather started 9 articles,I don't own them, because they have been edited by hundreds. You can edit anything or start an artic…
I was a wiki editor doc. It is worse than "anyone can write anything". The staff, the contributors are all volunteers, and the committees that make rulings are not only volunteers but close knit cabal. I wrote or rather started 9 articles,I don't own them, because they have been edited by hundreds. You can edit anything or start an article by you need a reliable secondary source, that can be verirified, so it is difficult o post a non fact as a fact.
On the other hand, each article has a watch list, and people with a special interest in a subject or person, put that article on their watch list, and anytime there is an edit made to that article, they are notified.
Articles with political, social, cultural relevance and controversy are closely watched by people who have a vested interest in that subject or person.
I have tried to edit the treason of Reagan and Nixon, both of them well documented in reliable secondary sources, and I quoted the sources, and I was immediately reverted by a Reagan and Nixon hall monitor. Whey you revert you are suppose to make a comment on the Talk Page (a tab on the left), the talk page is where you find the interesting comments and arguments.
Anyway, if you revert a revert, and the original reverter reverts your revert, you wind up being brought before a committee (of volunteers, who probably know the reverter) and you can be banned or blocked. Blocked
I got tired of that shit, and refused to play nice, so I called out the assholes, and got permanently banned, like I give a shit anyway. Submission is compliance, submission is acceptance.
Very interesting William. I've written a few articles there and informally corrected or added to hundreds of others. I was thinking more of my (college) students who too often use material from it as "research". They have to be taught the difference between referred journals, which as you know are properly reviewed by an author's peers, and casual articles that can be from any biased source. Not understanding this is one facet of how critical thinking is sliding in America, with predictable results.
My son is an editor, when bored, my granddaughter has written a couple of articles a few years ago during a Xmas break, on female scientists. Wikipedia does have policies and guidelines as you known, they do not accept primary sources, just as self published (biased) sources, secondary sources are sources that report about a subject, but those can be biased.
I had an running revert war with a dude who,obviously, believed he was descended from a pilgrim (a puritan).
One factoid he didn't like was that the Mayflower stopped at Massachusetts Bay, because they ran out of beer, and had to replenish their stores, their destination was to land in what is now the Hudson river
I also used known physics and logic to explain why Mars could no be colonized.
Gravity of .38ge inhibited the ability to create an atmosphere of lighter gases, and liquid water. That got reverted, by a watcher (probably a Muskrat).
I beg to differ somewhat. Many times Wikipedia's error rate has been compared with those of major encyclopedia publishers. Every time it compares favorably. You might think that open source knowledge would be plagued by bias. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true because on major and controversial issues your likely to have a wide-diversity of belief, but they all are as likely to care as much about such an issue and would actually moderate each other.
Differ as you please. On some subjects wikipedia is very helpful, but when it comes to "touchy" subjects, i.e. politics, religion and even national myths, like that of the "Pilgrims" proceed with caution.
I know for a fact that some "touchy" subjects are dominated by ideologues and people with an agenda.
I was a wiki editor doc. It is worse than "anyone can write anything". The staff, the contributors are all volunteers, and the committees that make rulings are not only volunteers but close knit cabal. I wrote or rather started 9 articles,I don't own them, because they have been edited by hundreds. You can edit anything or start an article by you need a reliable secondary source, that can be verirified, so it is difficult o post a non fact as a fact.
On the other hand, each article has a watch list, and people with a special interest in a subject or person, put that article on their watch list, and anytime there is an edit made to that article, they are notified.
Articles with political, social, cultural relevance and controversy are closely watched by people who have a vested interest in that subject or person.
I have tried to edit the treason of Reagan and Nixon, both of them well documented in reliable secondary sources, and I quoted the sources, and I was immediately reverted by a Reagan and Nixon hall monitor. Whey you revert you are suppose to make a comment on the Talk Page (a tab on the left), the talk page is where you find the interesting comments and arguments.
Anyway, if you revert a revert, and the original reverter reverts your revert, you wind up being brought before a committee (of volunteers, who probably know the reverter) and you can be banned or blocked. Blocked
I got tired of that shit, and refused to play nice, so I called out the assholes, and got permanently banned, like I give a shit anyway. Submission is compliance, submission is acceptance.
Very interesting William. I've written a few articles there and informally corrected or added to hundreds of others. I was thinking more of my (college) students who too often use material from it as "research". They have to be taught the difference between referred journals, which as you know are properly reviewed by an author's peers, and casual articles that can be from any biased source. Not understanding this is one facet of how critical thinking is sliding in America, with predictable results.
My son is an editor, when bored, my granddaughter has written a couple of articles a few years ago during a Xmas break, on female scientists. Wikipedia does have policies and guidelines as you known, they do not accept primary sources, just as self published (biased) sources, secondary sources are sources that report about a subject, but those can be biased.
I had an running revert war with a dude who,obviously, believed he was descended from a pilgrim (a puritan).
One factoid he didn't like was that the Mayflower stopped at Massachusetts Bay, because they ran out of beer, and had to replenish their stores, their destination was to land in what is now the Hudson river
I also used known physics and logic to explain why Mars could no be colonized.
Gravity of .38ge inhibited the ability to create an atmosphere of lighter gases, and liquid water. That got reverted, by a watcher (probably a Muskrat).
I beg to differ somewhat. Many times Wikipedia's error rate has been compared with those of major encyclopedia publishers. Every time it compares favorably. You might think that open source knowledge would be plagued by bias. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true because on major and controversial issues your likely to have a wide-diversity of belief, but they all are as likely to care as much about such an issue and would actually moderate each other.
Differ as you please. On some subjects wikipedia is very helpful, but when it comes to "touchy" subjects, i.e. politics, religion and even national myths, like that of the "Pilgrims" proceed with caution.
I know for a fact that some "touchy" subjects are dominated by ideologues and people with an agenda.