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if the idea behind wikipedia is that anyone out there can edit it.....how does someone.....anyone editing it destroy the idea of a place that anyone can edit.Zeus wrote:Like I said, too bad but no one can do anything about it. They have just as much right as we do to edit. Completely destroys the idea of Wikipedia, so I hope the watchdog groups continuously use and update programs like this to keep an eye on this crap and at least make it public that's what's going on. Then it's up to the public to determine whether or not they'll tolerate it.
Judging from the response here, I'd say the level of caring will be fairly minimal.
The idea of Wikipedia is the collection of knowledge from all sources into a database open to the public for information purposes. It's essentially self-policed and minimizes bias, which is a big problem in educational publications; no subjectivity involved. Now, you can never truly have unbiased information since your very view of life is biased, but when you have the whole world ready to fix what you write, you're gonna have to write it in such a way and provide evidence in such a way as to stand up to scrunity.Chris Hansbrough wrote:if the idea behind wikipedia is that anyone out there can edit it.....how does someone.....anyone editing it destroy the idea of a place that anyone can edit.Zeus wrote:Like I said, too bad but no one can do anything about it. They have just as much right as we do to edit. Completely destroys the idea of Wikipedia, so I hope the watchdog groups continuously use and update programs like this to keep an eye on this crap and at least make it public that's what's going on. Then it's up to the public to determine whether or not they'll tolerate it.
Judging from the response here, I'd say the level of caring will be fairly minimal.
Wiki-washing is bad, but human nature is what it is. Compared to the self-aggrandizing scrubbery in corporate press releases, I'm just absolutely, humbly thankful that at least Wiki has an inalterable (relatively speaking) edit history. I'd love it if Wikipedia could be absolutely unflappable on fact all the time, but that is 1000% impossible. At least this system has auditability, and even more can be updated in realtime - if someone paid off an encyclopedia editor back in the day to make some privileged edits, that was it, and there was nothing you could do about it.Zeus wrote:The idea of Wikipedia is the collection of knowledge from all sources into a database open to the public for information purposes. It's essentially self-policed and minimizes bias, which is a big problem in educational publications; no subjectivity involved. Now, you can never truly have unbiased information since your very view of life is biased, but when you have the whole world ready to fix what you write, you're gonna have to write it in such a way and provide evidence in such a way as to stand up to scrunity.Chris Hansbrough wrote:if the idea behind wikipedia is that anyone out there can edit it.....how does someone.....anyone editing it destroy the idea of a place that anyone can edit.Zeus wrote:Like I said, too bad but no one can do anything about it. They have just as much right as we do to edit. Completely destroys the idea of Wikipedia, so I hope the watchdog groups continuously use and update programs like this to keep an eye on this crap and at least make it public that's what's going on. Then it's up to the public to determine whether or not they'll tolerate it.
Judging from the response here, I'd say the level of caring will be fairly minimal.
Companies, politicians, organized groups, or any other person with an agenda altering or editing out facts, whether complimentary or not, destroys the entire point of Wikipedia. Sure, the way it's set up you expect the problem to be corrected (as we're seeing now with these Wiki tracking programs) but during the transition period, you're still gonna have very biased articles or portions thereof.
Everybody says this like it's a bad thing. The fact of the matter is that all encyclopedias are starting points. It would be idiotic for a kid to do a book report based on a single entry in an encyclopedia book, but many do.Kupek wrote:But I wouldn't use a traditional encyclopedia for that either. While sometimes Wikipedia is appropriate as an only source (like when I'm implementing a data structure I haven't implemented in years, and I want a good reference), in general, it's just a good starting point.
Errr...no. I don't understand. What you said was different than what I said.Kupek wrote:Uh, isn't that what I said?
An extension of my original URL. Motherless fucks, all of them
Wikipedia was meant to be open for anyone to modify. And that often includes people whom you may not agree with.Zeus wrote:Any of you guys heard about this "wiki washing" before? Kinda destroys the point, doesn't it?
Long URLs suck!
Well, they are free to edit by anyone, I guess you can't really do anything about it
This kind of stuff has been going on throughout history. You don't actually believe that history stuff you spent so much time studying in school is the Truth of God do you?Zeus wrote:An extension of my original URL. Motherless fucks, all of them
Not at all. That's why I like Wikipedia. It's policed by EVERYONE not just a couple of people making a book. Bias is very minimized that way.Ishamael wrote:This kind of stuff has been going on throughout history. You don't actually believe that history stuff you spent so much time studying in school is the Truth of God do you?Zeus wrote:An extension of my original URL. Motherless fucks, all of them
