Wikipedia Edit Wars!!

[Brian Cronin]

As you all may know, Wikipedia is a cool series of encyclopedia entries on pretty much everything out there.

The shtick about Wikipedia is that the entries are written by normal people, and they are edited by other people until any bias and/or inaccuracies are removed.

Well, as you can imagine, this process is not a smooth one, and therefore, it has become one of my favorite new games to click on the discussions for entries and just watch the fireworks flow!

For instance, from a discussion about Batman, ""Us"? Who, you and the mouse in your pocket? I disagree with your take. Don't like it? Bring it to third party for debate. But the characters name is "The Batman", he has just commonly become known as "Batman", and that should be noted."

This is how almost every discussion goes!!!

It is hilarious.

Anyone have any really crazy Wikipedia discussions that they have seen?

-Brian

[Aaron Kashtan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars_ever

Two notable ones are the ongoing dispute over whether to refer to a certain city as Danzig or as Gdansk, and the one about whether or not apple pie should be described as "American."

[Wesley Dodds]

*visits George W. Bush page*

Hmm, I've just found something to do with the rest of my day!

*laughs like a maniac*

[Brian Cronin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars_ever

Two notable ones are the ongoing dispute over whether to refer to a certain city as Danzig or as Gdansk, and the one about whether or not apple pie should be described as "American."

Haha!

That's awesome, Aaron!

I never would have guessed to look it up ON Wikipedia!!

-Brian

[Brian Cronin]

*visits George W. Bush page*

Hmm, I've just found something to do with the rest of my day!

*laughs like a maniac*

See?

Fun for the whole family!!!

-Brian

[PatrickG]

I heard John Byrne's page is a nightmarish hybrid of compromises between supporters and detractors and looking at it, it does show a little.

[Brian Cronin]

Woah, Patrick, reading the Byrne article, and then reading the Byrne discussion....WOW.

That just seems like too much work for the reward, IMO.

-Brian

[Wesley Dodds]

The Bush page is implausible hackery, a whitewash so stark it stretches the credibility of the staunchest Bush supporter.

[Wesley Dodds]

Gosh, the Byrne page is a fun read:

while Byrne considered Reeve courageous, he felt that heroism required a concious decision and Reeve had no choice over his accident

Hah!

[Shellhead]

Last time I looked, the Islam page at Wikipedia was locked to prevent further editing.

[Bard]

Now I feel stupid: one of my thesis sources on "decsion-making process" is from Wikipedia. :o I liked the definition, and couldn't find it elsewhere.


Maybe I can change it before my chair notices? :o

[BlairH]

But the characters name is "The Batman", he has just commonly become known as "Batman", and that should be noted."


Me and Gaz had THIS EXACT SAME DEBATE a couple of days ago.

[Batai]

I feel I have to chime in here...

Although our site is (currently) dedicated to Marvel, and hence a niche market, the Wiki we maintain finds that similar problems arise from time to time.

I, as the administrator, have been very fortunate that our community is, all in all, a great bunch of people. I think politics obviously plays a larger part in a site like Wikipedia than our site, the Marvel Database Project (http://www.marveldatabase.com). Our site tries to be as unbiased and rooted in fact as possible.

Perfection in this area is, of course, impossible. I wanted to mention however that the community at large is both the root of the problem and the source of the cure.

My thanks goes to the people willing to contribute, no matter what the cost and regardless of any political noise going on around them.

As an aside: Check out our site and tell me how you think we are doing regarding this subject...

Thanks.

[Pepsigirl]

On another forum I post at, we came up with "fronk," which is really just another word for "funk" and made a wikipedia on it. People have had it deleted 3 times so far.

[Batai]

On another forum I post at, we came up with "fronk," which is really just another word for "funk" and made a wikipedia on it. People have had it deleted 3 times so far.


So you are the culprit??

:D

[Adam Crocker]

It's no longer there but at a time the neutrality of the atheism article was disputed because the definition at the time used the word "claims," in regards to what the position asserts regarding the lack of divinity. Some guy took this as a basis to challenge the article's nuetrality because the term "claim" according to him meant asserting a position based on reason which atheism "clearly was not." (Tenuous given the difficulty of actually proving or disproving the existence divinity, but that aside reason or rationality has nothing to do with the definition of the term itself.) And there was a whole fugging discussion about this too, like no one thought to reach for a dictionary and put a stop to this craziness.

[PatrickG]

I would just change "claims" to "asserts".

And then go through and edit all religious articles to the same standard.

[Batai]

Being a person that believes in God, YET, doesn't want to see anyone unjustly coerced or convinced into religion... I believe topics like this, should maybe be best left unwritten.

Faith is a purely immaterial property, nothing but scripture being 'of this world'... The facts about what has happened pertaining to a particular religion, or 'quotation WITHOUT interpretation' of The Qu'ran and/or The Bible seems to be the only unbiased information possible. Even history can be 'misinterpreted'...

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

[Adam Crocker]

I would just change "claims" to "asserts".

And then go through and edit all religious articles to the same standard.

I don't think it would have made a difference though. From the looks of things it was one guy with a stick up his ass about people having a difference of opinion with him to the point that he was willing to split hairs over a single word whose definition according to Websters' wasn't nearly rigid as he made it out to be.

[Shellhead]

I don't think it would have made a difference though. From the looks of things it was one guy with a stick up his ass about people having a difference of opinion with him to the point that he was willing to split hairs over a single word whose definition according to Websters' wasn't nearly rigid as he made it out to be.

The above paragraph should be included in the Wikipedia article on "the Internet."

[artemisboy]

Question: I tried looking up my favorite comic book character on the site to no avail. I tried making a page for her but for some reason the page isn't going live. Anyone know what I can do to process the page I made?

- Peter

[west3man]

Question: I tried looking up my favorite comic book character on the site to no avail. I tried making a page for her but for some reason the page isn't going live. Anyone know what I can do to process the page I made?

- Peter
I'm NO expert... or even a novice, but don't they review'em, briefly, first?

Even sights that just have computers look stuff over, automatically, tend to have a little space between "submit" and posting.

[artemisboy]

I know it's that way on IMDB but I thought I saw something on the W site saying it goes live as soon as it is submitted. Again, I could be wrong. I'll give it a few days. :)

- Peter

[MKTerra]

Question: I tried looking up my favorite comic book character on the site to no avail. I tried making a page for her but for some reason the page isn't going live. Anyone know what I can do to process the page I made?

- PeterI think there are two possibilities... either it takes time for the changes to appear, or they've started preventing unregistered viewers from creating new articles (I heard this was planned for the near future... everyone would still be able to edit existing articles though).

[Justin D.]

There has been more discussion of Wikipedia in larger new outlets like CNN recently. They've discussed the validity of information on Wikipedia if everyone and anyone can contribute and edit content. A representative for Wikipedia said on CNN that Wikipedia comments from now can no longer be made by anonymous people. However, it doesn't seem take all that much effort to create a Wikipedia identitify.

[Michael P]

There has been more discussion of Wikipedia in larger new outlets like CNN recently.
A sure sign that the fad is just about tapped.

[Nate C.]

A sure sign that the fad is just about tapped.

does that mean I'll no longer have to have debates where my opponent insists that his information is reliable cus Wkpd said so?

[Core]

A representative for Wikipedia said on CNN that Wikipedia comments from now can no longer be made by anonymous people. However, it doesn't seem take all that much effort to create a Wikipedia identitify.

Anonymous browsers of the website can still edit articles; they just can't create new articles without registering.

But, yeah, the registering process only takes about 30 seconds, so I have my doubts as to how effective this change will be.

[Puma]

this was in this morning's paper:

Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005

Wikipedia needs safeguards that work

By Mike Langberg

Mercury News

Jimmy Wales has often described himself as the constitutional monarch of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia written and edited by volunteers.

Queen Elizabeth II of England and other constitutional monarchs can only intervene in affairs of state on rare occasions of great crisis.

Wales, who co-founded the non-profit Wikipedia in 2001, exercised his royal power last week. But he only took a tiny step in the midst of a crisis where bolder leadership is required.

Wikipedia keeps getting in trouble because its open model -- where anyone can write and edit entries -- is an invitation for character assassination, ideological crusades and outright vandalism, as well as legitimate scholarship. The latest flap involves retired newspaper editor and civil-rights crusader John Seigenthaler Sr., the subject of an anonymously written defamatory entry that lived on Wikipedia for six months earlier this year.

Wales added paper-thin safeguards in response.

They're not enough to resolve Wikipedia's fundamental dilemma: It can't meet what Wales calls the project's primary goal -- producing ``a free, high-quality encyclopedia'' -- while also clinging to the utopian concept that anyone can contribute without restrictions.

How this crisis plays out will reverberate across the emerging landscape of ``social media,'' where loose groups -- such as Wikipedia's volunteer contributors -- come together through the Web to create news, community forums and information.

The result of Wikipedia's open editing system is predictable: Most contributors provide useful material, while a small number of ``trolls'' repeatedly deface the encyclopedia (www.wikipedia.org)

Wikipedia is also plagued by endless ``revert wars,'' where dueling groups keep reversing each other's changes to controversial articles.

This undermines the credibility of Wikipedia, which now offers an unprecedented 857,000 articles in English, along with versions in more than 100 other languages.

Wikipedia is becoming a first reference stop for millions of people, from schoolchildren to journalists, including me. But many of these users don't realize a small percentage of articles are flawed. Even more troubling, there's no way to know when you've hit one of those defective entries. That's why I never put a fact from Wikipedia into one of my columns without first double-checking it elsewhere.

Seigenthaler, a one-time aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy, brought all this to the surface in an op-ed piece in USA Today on Nov. 30.

The hatchet-job Wikipedia biography falsely stated Seigenthaler lived in the Soviet Union for 13 years, and even implicated him in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy.

The entry stayed on Wikipedia until October, despite a cursory review by a Wikipedia volunteer.

Last week, Wales took action by banning anonymous submission of new articles, although anonymous users will still be free to alter existing articles.

This is at best a tiny speed bump rather than a barrier, because anybody can become a registered Wikipedia user by simply thinking up a user name and password.

``We want to stay experimental, and not close off any options,'' Wales told me last week in a phone interview from his office in Tampa, Fla. ``Anything top down has to be done very gently.''

More small steps are on the horizon. Wales said Wikipedia will soon introduce a ``time delay'' mode for articles caught in revert wars, where revisions won't become effective for 10 minutes. In that brief period, volunteers would presumably quash inappropriate changes.

In January, Wikipedia will start testing a system that lets readers click a button to rate the quality of articles. This could eventually be used to flag false or substandard entries.

To me, Wales is furiously bailing out a leaking boat without plugging the hole in the bottom.

``There's no substitute for really good fact checkers,'' said Craig Newmark, founder of San Francisco-based craigslist. His group of Web sites, which offer classified ads and announcements created by users, also gets hit by trolls. But, unlike Wikipedia, postings are clearly identified as the creation of individuals.

``Jimmy has some big problems, and I don't know how to solve them,'' Newmark added.

Unlike Newmark, I have a suggestion: Wales should issue a royal decree moving Wikipedia to a ``gatekeeper'' model, borrowed from successful open-source software projects such as the Linux operating system and the Firefox browser.

These projects are administered by networks of trusted volunteers who carefully review additions and changes before they are made, and there's a hierarchy to resolve disputes.

Wikipedia is now big enough, with a core group of 13,000 active volunteers, to pre-screen all of its contents. New entries and edits could still be submitted -- even anonymously -- by any visitor to the Wikipedia site but would be placed in a kind of holding pen until one of the trusted volunteers took a look and said OK.

Some Wikipedia utopians who want the online world to be forever free of rules and boundaries would no doubt walk away. Wikipedia's growth rate might slow. But the permanent banishment of trolls and revert wars would encourage those remaining to stick with their worthy mission to create an ever-expanding and reliable repository of human knowledge.

[artemisboy]

Still no updating on Wiki's end. Keeping my fingers crossed that it does finally show up.

Oh, the character I'm trying to update is: Artemis of Bana-Mighdall BTW.

- Peter

[Forefinger]

I just did some editing of my own. I was in 3rd Infantry Division when we invaded Iraq and was annoyed to see that they had omitted some of the history of the unit, specifically how it came to be known as "The Rock of the Marne".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._3d_Infantry_Division

[Dr. Hfuhruhurr]

It's amazing to me, as a self-proclaimed geek, to find this whole other dimension of geekdom out there that I never knew existed. Man, you know your life is messed up when some guy who can tell you when Molten Man's last appearance was checks out your little hobby and says, "Dude. Get a life."

[i_mmmchocolate]

Within the last few minutes, Captain Crunch has gone from 'bad', to 'good', to 'evil'.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap%27n_Crunch

[JDogindy]

There was the Cranky Kong discussion, then the cat discussion, and finally, "Hitler has only one ball".

But, check the "American Lameness" section on that link in the second post. God, that's funny!

[Wesley Dodds]

But Hitler doesn't have one ball, that was just English propaganda.

[spoon_jenkins]

Within the last few minutes, Captain Crunch has gone from 'bad', to 'good', to 'evil'.
I think people shouldn't engage in this type of vandalism edit or inside joke edits like Pepsigirl did with "fronk."

Wikipedia is a resource for the benefit of everybody, and it's bad to screw with it for one's own personal entertainment. People shouldn't be selfish about our common resources. I mean, that the keystone to progress.

[i_mmmchocolate]

boo hiss.
_

[Michael P]

I think the nerd from Wisconsin and the nerd from North Dakota arguing about which of their respective states' Devil's Lakes is better win. And by win, I mean "have never seen a naked woman in their lives."

[K'Nort]

This is very surprising:

Thursday 23rd March 2006 | The Register [UK]

Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco

Nature magazine has some tough questions to answer after it let its Wikipedia fetish get the better of its responsibilities to reporting science. The Enyclopedia Britannica has published a devastating response to Nature's December comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica, and accuses the journal of misrepresenting its own evidence.

Where the evidence didn't fit, says Britannica, Nature's news team just made it up. Britannica has called on the journal to repudiate the report, which was put together by its news team.

Independent experts were sent 50 unattributed articles from both Wikipedia and Britannica, and the journal claimed that Britannica turned up 123 "errors" to Wikipedia's 162.

But Nature sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children's version and Britannica's "book of the year" to others, and in one case, simply stitched together bits from different articles and inserted its own material, passing it off as a single Britannica entry.

Nice "Mash-Up" - but bad science.

"Almost everything about the journal's investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading," says Britannica.

"Dozens of inaccuracies attributed to the Britannica were not inaccuracies at all, and a number of the articles Nature examined were not even in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The study was so poorly carried out and its findings so error-laden that it was completely without merit."

In one case, for example. Nature's peer reviewer was sent only the 350 word introduction to a 6,000 word Britannica article on lipids - which was criticized for containing omissions.

A pattern also emerges which raises questions about the choice of the domain experts picked by Nature's journalists.

Several got their facts wrong, and in many other cases, simply offered differences of opinion.

"Dozens of the so-called inaccuracies they attributed to us were nothing of the kind; they were the result of reviewers expressing opinions that differed from ours about what should be included in an encyclopedia article. In these cases Britannica's coverage was actually sound."

Nature only published a summary of the errors its experts found some time after the initial story, and has yet to disclose all the reviewer's notes.

So how could a respected science publication make such a grave series of errors?

When Nature published the news story in December, it followed weeks of bad publicity for Wikipedia, and was a gift for the project's beleaguered supporters.

In October, a co-founder had agreed that several entries were "horrific crap". A former newspaper editor and Kennedy aide John Siegenthaler Snr then wrote an article explaining how libellous modifications had lain unchecked for months. By early December, Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales was becoming a regular feature on CNN cable news, explaining away the site's deficiencies.

"Nature's investigation suggests that Britannica's advantage may not be great," wrote news editor Jim Giles.

Nature accompanied this favorable news report with a cheerful, spin-heavy editorial that owed more to an evangelical recruitment drive than it did a rational analysis of empirical evidence. It urged readers to "push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia."

Former Britannica editor Robert McHenry dubbed Wikipedia the "Faith based encyclopedia", and the project certainly reflects the religious zeal of some of its keenest supporters.

Hundreds of publications pounced on the Nature story, and echoed the spin that Wikipedia was as good as Britannica - downplaying or omitting to mention the quality gap. The press loves an upbeat story, and what can be more uplifting than the utopian idea that we're all experts - at whatever subject we choose?

The journal didn't, however, disclose the evidence for these conclusions until some days later, when journalists had retired for their annual Christmas holiday break.

And this evidence raised troubling questions, as Nicholas Carr noted last month. Many publications had assumed Nature's Wikipedia story was objectively reporting the work of scientists - Nature's staple - rather than a news report assembled by journalists pretending to be scientists.

And now we know it was anything but scientific.

[MKTerra]

Ouchers. Bleah.

[Forefinger]

I'm in an ongoing battle over http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forefinger

[Forefinger]

Within the last few minutes, Captain Crunch has gone from 'bad', to 'good', to 'evil'.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap%27n_Crunch
Now it sucks....

[Michael P]

The edit war over the "clitoris" entry is rather amusing.

[Paul McEnery]

The edit war over the "clitoris" entry is rather amusing.
Posters are advised that this page is not at all work safe.

As I just found out! :eek:

[atoningunifex]

Posters are advised that this page is not at all work safe.

As I just found out! :eek:

Is the clitoris EVER work safe?

[Paul McEnery]

Is the clitoris EVER work safe?
The question alone isn't work safe.

And for the next 15 minutes, I don't think I am, either. :D

I'm off for a smoke.

[Dizzy D]

Posters are advised that this page is not at all work safe.

As I just found out! :eek:

Dammit, I hoped for a ""clitoris" does not exist" or ""clitoris" could not be found" error message.

[K'Nort]

Holy toledo, you weren't kidding.

[MarvelKnight]

Geeze, you people act like you never seen a woman before.

[Roquefort Raider]

... and the one about whether or not apple pie should be described as "American."

It still isn't "Freedom pie"???

[MarvelKnight]

I remember there was some guy claiming the 1954 Godzilla was a cheap Japanese remake of a 1949 American monster movie starring Raymond Burr. He claimed Godzilla fans were refusing to acknowledge the existance of an earlier American version. Moron was talking about the 1954 Godzilla, the American version with Perry Mason in it.

[Aaron Kashtan]

It still isn't "Freedom pie"???

Not yet, although I've heard that "freedom onion soup" is gaining popularity. :D

[howyadoin]

Former Britannica editor Robert McHenry dubbed Wikipedia the "Faith based encyclopedia"...That was a nice turn of phrase.

[BoosterBronze]

I haven't heard that much talk about clitorises (or clitorides) since I dressed in drag on that Woman Empowerment Tree-Sitting Weekend.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

On another forum I post at, we came up with "fronk," which is really just another word for "funk" and made a wikipedia on it. People have had it deleted 3 times so far.sorry for the thread necro but i had to reply to this.i see things like this happening all the time,most people seem to delete stuff because they PERSONALLY don't like it.for me its the trivial stuff that bugs me.especially when it concerns adding pictures of music artists, actors etc..i was in a edit war over a picture of a rock band,and a rap group.its just not worth the headache..:rolleyes:

[king mob]

Now I feel stupid: one of my thesis sources on "decsion-making process" is from Wikipedia. :o I liked the definition, and couldn't find it elsewhere.


Maybe I can change it before my chair notices? :o

I'm surprised that any form of academia would allow Wikipedia as a source. As part of research it's fine, but it's become such a horribly flawed experiment over the last couple of years, it's hard for it to be taken as a reliable source.

[Loren]

I'm surprised that any form of academia would allow Wikipedia as a source. As part of research it's fine, but it's become such a horribly flawed experiment over the last couple of years, it's hard for it to be taken as a reliable source.

A couple of weeks ago, former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney filed a libel complaint (http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/PDF/PDF%20Archive/mckinneyComplaint.pdf) against the major Atlanta newspaper. It's such a hoot, I'd meant to post about it.

In it, she actually cites Wikipedia as a source in a footnote. Which related to a tangent that didn't belong in the complaint in the first place. And she misspells the name of the Wikipedia article.

[Forefinger]

A couple of weeks ago, former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney filed a libel complaint (http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/PDF/PDF%20Archive/mckinneyComplaint.pdf) against the major Atlanta newspaper. It's such a hoot, I'd meant to post about it.

In it, she actually cites Wikipedia as a source in a footnote. Which related to a tangent that didn't belong in the complaint in the first place. And she misspells the name of the Wikipedia article.

That woman is insane. I actually miss living in Georgia at times, due to not hearing more of her insane antics on the local news.

[Aaron Kashtan]

A couple of weeks ago, former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney filed a libel complaint (http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/PDF/PDF%20Archive/mckinneyComplaint.pdf) against the major Atlanta newspaper. It's such a hoot, I'd meant to post about it.

In it, she actually cites Wikipedia as a source in a footnote. Which related to a tangent that didn't belong in the complaint in the first place. And she misspells the name of the Wikipedia article.

I am not a lawyer, but that complaint looks silly, vindictive, and full of irrelevant crap.

Is there any chance she'll win the lawsuit?

[Buried Alien]

Since the subject of Wikipedia has come up, I want to say that its authorities have recently become much more draconian in their governance of the use of images in articles (copyright and fair use issues)...more so than is probably necessary to cover their legal liabilities. The result is much less visually useful encyclopedia than it was just a month or two ago.

I know the policy has turned off quite a few former avid and knowledgeable contributors from contributing any further.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[blackdragon6]

i was in a edit war over a picture of a rock band,and a rap group.its just not worth the headache..:rolleyes:same happened to me and the bone thugs-n-harmony page.after that whole tedious routine of going through deletion review and other "internet red tape" only for it to get deleted again anyway,i just said fuck it.and abandoned the page.

[blackdragon6]

Since the subject of Wikipedia has come up, I want to say that its authorities have recently become much more draconian in their governance of the use of images in articles (copyright and fair use issues)...more so than is probably necessarly to cover their legal liabilities. The result is much less visually useful encyclopedia than it was just a month or two ago.

I know the policy has turned off quite a few former avid and knowledgeable contributors from contributing any further.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)yeah they have gotten waaay more hostile about images in there.i just don't bother with it anymore..

[Sabrina_Fried]

I'm surprised that any form of academia would allow Wikipedia as a source. As part of research it's fine, but it's become such a horribly flawed experiment over the last couple of years, it's hard for it to be taken as a reliable source.

I just finished up a Distance Ed course. Our TA specifically instructed us that Wikipedia was not to be used as a source for information and that referencing it in any way would result in lost marks.

We were permitted to use only the following resources in our assignments: Our own fieldwork and data obtained from reputable sources (ie University research labs, government research labs, etc) where the TA could obtain the raw data herself if necessary.

Sabrina

[Loren]

I am not a lawyer, but that complaint looks silly, vindictive, and full of irrelevant crap.

Is there any chance she'll win the lawsuit?

The only chance she has is if the paper fails to file an answer at all, and she gets a default judgment.

Still, I'll go ahead and rag on a couple of her supposedly "libelous" comments:

She claims it was "false, defamatory, and libelous" that Tucker referred to McKinney's father as "a spokesman for [McKinney's] campaign." While it's true that he was not a campaign spokesman that year, he WAS her campaign manager (although he resigned after those comments went public). And calling her father her "spokesman," even if you deem it false, still isn't defamatory.

The claim that's gotten the most attention is the one that says Tucker's comment that McKinney "doesn't have the power or prestige to pass a resolution in support of sweetened iced tea" was libelous. Because to prove that such a statement was false (before you even get to the defamatory angle) would require McKinney to prove that, yes, she has the power and prestige to pass a pro-sweet iced tea resolution.

Frankly, most of the claims mirror complaints of hers from an open letter her attorney wrote last July. A letter that I ripped apart here (http://voteloren.blogspot.com/2006/08/open-letter-to-jm-raffauf-and-cynthia.html). My favorite point, kinda relevant to the sweet tea bit, is this: "Thus, Congresswoman McKinney's legislative resume for her first ten years in the Congress appears to be a ceremonial bill, a non-binding resolution, an amendment, and two minor proposals that were most likely incorporated into larger bills."

As for the complaint, aside from the Wikipedia thing, there's also the tangent on Pulitzer standards, the two completely unrelated complaints in paragraphs 28 and 29, the attachment printout from "Davey D's Hip Hop Palace" relating to one of those unrelated tangents, the irrelevant footnoted tangent that also goes out of its way to tarnish Sean Hannity, and the hilarious bit where she complains about the paper referring to another Bill McKinney as "Bill McKinney" (because her father has a similar name). She manages to include five attachments, only one of which even arguably relates to her core libel claims. And, of course, the final demand for $10+ million.

[Tommy]

On the heroes page I inserted that Candice can mimic anyone's voice. It was deleted.

Apparently the fact that when she impersonates someone she can use their exact voice is not important.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

i don't bother editing wikipedia anymore..

[king mob]

I still think that even with it's massive flaws, Wikipedia is a great resource, but it's turned into this horrible example of what happens when 'experts' (or in Wikipedia terms, anyone who has huge amounts of edits regardless of quality) begin to control what is written.

The comics articles are example of this. Anyone trying to create a decent, encyclopedic article will, at some point, have to deal with some fanboy's (who frequently ends up being one of Wikipedia's chosen ones) ranting.

I gave up editing there a while back, it just really wasn't worth arguing with people who are obsessed idiots.

[blackdragon6]

I still think that even with it's massive flaws, Wikipedia is a great resource, but it's turned into this horrible example of what happens when 'experts' (or in Wikipedia terms, anyone who has huge amounts of edits regardless of quality) begin to control what is written.

The comics articles are example of this. Anyone trying to create a decent, encyclopedic article will, at some point, have to deal with some fanboy's (who frequently ends up being one of Wikipedia's chosen ones) ranting.

I gave up editing there a while back, it just really wasn't worth arguing with people who are obsessed idiots.are they really fanboys,or just random editors who have become mad with editing power?

[Michael P]

are they really fanboys,or just random editors who have become mad with editing power?

Does one rule out the other?

[blackdragon6]

Does one rule out the other?well i kinda see a difference in them lol,one is a typical fan boy/girl with power.the other is just some random dickhead with power.:D

[Comic_Mobsta]

Wikipedia isn't really bad when it comes to info,But due to the image Nazis its not particularly appealing anymore like Buried Alien said.Me my self, i had monumental fall outs with wiki editors when it came to me trying to up load pictures to biography's.You give a fair use rationale and they STILL delete it.Another thing that bugs me is the fact that editors think theres a such thing as TOO MUCH INFORMATION.This mentality actually stops Wikipedia from being very in depth.I think a lot of their deletion/editing policies really hurt wikipedia from becoming better than what it is.

[king mob]

well i kinda see a difference in them lol,one is a typical fan boy/girl with power.the other is just some random dickhead with power.:D

Really, there isn't much difference.

[Forefinger]

I keep adding "Cronin is a bunghole" to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Resources

but it keeps getting changed. Bastiches.

[BoosterBronze]

Recently it seems a lot of interesting geek themed articles (minor pro wrestlers, sci-fi stuff) have been getting cut back due to being 'uncited.'

What are you supposed to cite when you're talking about a minor wrestler, a 25 year old videogame, or an obscure cartoon? It doesn't inflame my righteous anger, but it does make Wiki a bit less interestign to me.

[Comic_Mobsta]

Recently it seems a lot of interesting geek themed articles (minor pro wrestlers, sci-fi stuff) have been getting cut back due to being 'uncited.'

What are you supposed to cite when you're talking about a minor wrestler, a 25 year old videogame, or an obscure cartoon? It doesn't inflame my righteous anger, but it does make Wiki a bit less interestign to me.Yeah this is what also turned me off from the site.

[king mob]

Recently it seems a lot of interesting geek themed articles (minor pro wrestlers, sci-fi stuff) have been getting cut back due to being 'uncited.'

What are you supposed to cite when you're talking about a minor wrestler, a 25 year old videogame, or an obscure cartoon? It doesn't inflame my righteous anger, but it does make Wiki a bit less interestign to me.

Trying citing a book as a reference. You'll get some nutter admin complaining they can't find the reference online (not realising that the internet does not have the complete knowledge of the human race) & deleting anything (under the pretense of 'original research') referring to your perfectly reasonable reference.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

isn't all of the above complaints the reason why there are specialty and niche wiki sites out there?? for instance i love wookiepedia because they're more in depth when it comes to the star wars universe.unlike wikipedia which doesn't allow that when it comes to things like comics,video games,and even movies.

[king mob]

The niche Wiki's are fun, but Wikipedia is still top-heavy with every detail of things like Harry Potter & Star Wars.

[blackdragon6]

The niche Wiki's are fun, but Wikipedia is still top-heavy with every detail of things like Harry Potter & Star Wars.
i disagree, wookipedia >>>>>>>>>wikipedia star wars content any day.for example EU characters aren't treated as minor characters on wookipedia.

see for your self

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[beetlebum]

I think this whole edit wars thing just goes to show you that you should do what the creators of the website have said and not use it as a reliable source of information. i have questions regarding it's validness as well, especially in regards to the Hmong article. That's why it's open for people like me to come on and edit a response to the thing.

[OzBat!]

Wiki Wars? The Supreme Cabal Regime of the English Wikipedia (SCREW) passed an Official Decree stating that there shall be No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_climbing_the_Reichstag_dressed_as_Spi der-Man) in order to gain advantage in a content dispute. This is irrefutably obligatory! No ifs or buts!

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

That's why it's open for people like me to come on and edit a response to the thing.and afterwards your edit gets reverted.;)


i also think the reason why wikipedia is so anal retentive is because theres more focus on pop culture articles (things like music,movies,comics etc.) than the more "important" articles.so they try to limit the over detail of the pop culture related articles by limiting the amount of info you give.and of course we all know about they're hostility towards images.they're TRYING to run off the geeks i think.but i fail to see how that'll help improve their other articles.

[king mob]

Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of vain celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.

The Wikipedia Scanner, which trawls the backwaters of the popular online encyclopaedia, has unearthed a catalogue of organisations massaging entries, including the CIA and the Labour party.

Workers operating on CIA computers have been spotted editing entries including the biography of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, while unnamed individuals inside the Vatican have worked on entries about Catholic saints - and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

Meanwhile, an anonymous surfer from Labour's Millbank headquarters excised a section about Labour Students which referred to "careerist MPs" and criticisms that the party's student movement was no longer seen as radical.

And somebody from a computer traced to Democrat HQ edited a page on conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him "idiotic", "ridiculous" and labelling his 20 million listeners as "legally retarded".

But the biggest culprit that the Scanner claims to have discovered is Diebold, a supplier of voting machines, which it says has made huge alterations to entries about its involvement in the controversial "hanging chad" election in the US in 2000. The company was criticised in the wake of the disputed results, but edits made by its employees on Wikipedia have included the removal of 15 paragraphs detailing the allegations.

"In August 2003 Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fundraiser for George W Bush ..." the deleted text read. "When assailed by critics for the conflict of interest ... he vowed to lower his political profile."

The change, made two years ago, was quickly reversed and the culprit warned off for "vandalism". A Diebold official was not available for comment.

It is not the first time people have been found editing their own Wikipedia entries, which is considered a breach of etiquette on the site. Last year some US Congressional staff were found to be removing information they deemed unsavoury from the profiles of the politicians they worked for, and this year computer group Microsoft back-pedalled after it was revealed to have offered money to experts to "correct" entries about it on the site.

The Scanner, built by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, works by comparing 5.3m edits made on the encyclopaedia against the internet addresses of more than 2m companies or individuals.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/15/wikipedia.corporateaccountability

[Agent Helix]

i disagree, wookipedia >>>>>>>>>wikipedia star wars content any day.for example EU characters aren't treated as minor characters on wookipedia.

see for your self

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Shit like this sends icy daggers into my very soul.

[Forefinger]

i disagree, wookipedia >>>>>>>>>wikipedia star wars content any day.for example EU characters aren't treated as minor characters on wookipedia.

see for your self

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

It scares me to see geekdom on that high a level.

[Buried Alien]

This user (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cjmarsicano) makes very clear his disdain for Wikipedia's current policies regarding fair use images.

Overall, I agree with him; I think Wikipedia's policies are doing it more harm than good.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[blackdragon6]

User:CjmarsicanoThe recent non-free image policy that was recently enacted by the Foundation was done so without informing or consulting with the majority of Wikipedia editors that have been totally inconvenienced by this lame-assed neo-dictatorial decree. I feel that those of us that were following the rules are being punished for the actions of the assholes that didn't know the same rules.so that explains it.i just recently started back posting on wikipedia and found that there was this flood of edit wars over fair use images.or what is considered fair use.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

heres a wiki for all the geeks who likes to discuss tv cliche's...you could never do this with wikipedia.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

[Huh?]

heres a wiki for all the geeks who likes to discuss tv cliche's...you could never do this with wikipedia.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePageWow. No wonder we are losing so much ground around the world in education and engineering. If people spent half as much time studying/learning/experimenting as they do contributing to that site the US would be competitive.




...not that CBR posters (like me) should really cast the first stone.:D

[Kirk G]

I'm just glad that the a**hole who kept claiming Jack Kirby was a Christ-killer has been banned from Wikipedia. The crap he kept inserting into the man's biography was criminal!

[BoosterBronze]

Thus spake wiki-editor Cjmarsicano, on the concept that Wikipedia is not a democracy.


The last time some idiot with a Napoleon complex decided to do away with democracy, his time on this planet ended with his giving head to his handgun in an underground hideout in Berlin as an entire planet was about to give him a collective kick in the ass on his own stomping grounds.

I can't help thinking that someone making rules on his own website and Adolf FUCKING Hitler takes that Internet Law (that eventually everything is compared to Nazism) to its extreme ridiculous end.

My god this dude is a tool.

[Typo Lad]

I'm just glad that the a**hole who kept claiming Jack Kirby was a Christ-killer has been banned from Wikipedia. The crap he kept inserting into the man's biography was criminal!
Please. If Kirby'd killed Jesus, he'd have stayed dead.

[Jinxer]

I'm just glad that the a**hole who kept claiming Jack Kirby was a Christ-killer has been banned from Wikipedia. The crap he kept inserting into the man's biography was criminal!

Woah, what issue was that?

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Please. If Kirby'd killed Jesus, he'd have stayed dead.

Until a writer with no ideas of their own brought him back to 'honour' Kirby's original vision.

I just realised... ROY THOMAS IS GOD!

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

interestingly enough i was just editing a entry about the weaponry of the United States Colonial Marines. i added the fact that Vasquez was using a modern day Smith & Wesson Model 59 hand gun. but it kept getting deleted because it wasn't sourced. i mean damn, the source was the movie itself!!..sheesh :rolleyes:

[Ben Morgan]

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/48/wikipedialolcatsj9.jpg

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/48/wikipedialolcatsj9.jpg*groans* :(