The Shrine

You know, I'm kinda amazed at how successful a macrocosm Wikipedia turns out to be. Sure, unpopular articles could be subject to vandalism or non-NPOV, but there's so much going behind the scenes that you can't even begin to grasp. For example, an arbitration request that seems to play out much like a round table discussion or America's early pre-Declaration talks.

Or, I happened to be reading something random, and noticed a spot of vandalism, so I undid the changes. The changes were only in place for a day before I spotted it, which I figured was a pretty good turn-around time for a web site that hosts millions of articles.

I read about a Wiki-Washing detection program some grad student in the US created. That's how they revealed that companies like EA, Ford, etc., were changing their articles in their favour. Anyone know if there are watchdog groups actually using them?

That's what is both good and bad about Wikipedia, the ability for ANYONE to change it. Great if you have constant watchdogs but bad if you don't.

There's bots for every occasion in Wikipedia. The grad student one was just one example. (Actually, WikiScanner not really a bot, but a web site that archives interesting edits by IP.) That one was designed to follow WP:COI, and catch any offenders. WP:COI was also a point of contention in that arbitration request.