I once wrote a ponderous blog post about Wikipedia’s flaws. Now I learn that there is a famous Onion article that makes my points in a much more amusing way. Enjoy.
5 thoughts on “Wikipedia: The Definitive Critique”
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Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
I once wrote a ponderous blog post about Wikipedia’s flaws. Now I learn that there is a famous Onion article that makes my points in a much more amusing way. Enjoy.
Comments are closed.
Wikipedia has been taken over as a propaganda tool. Anything that can be bent to a hard left slant gets bent. The People of No Lives But Strong Opinions will camp on posts and obstruct any efforts to fix entries or even keep them on topic.
What, no faith in the wisdom of crowds?
For non-ideological stuff, Wikipedia is good. The point Fred makes only impacts part of Wikipedia.
I have no faith in the wisdom of the leftist crowd.
As to non ideological stuff, for some people there ain’t no such thing. I relized that when I used Wikipedia to look up some technical information on Caterpillar bulldozers. What I found had a few of the technical details and pages of anti Israel ranting. The Israelis have D-9 Cats, after all.
Jonathan, please forgive the intrusion. This is a test. My ability to send comments has been down for two days, and you know how that feels …
I like to think that I’ve done something for wikipedia’s accuracy. I’ve done a considerable bit of work elevating the article on Alger Hiss up from the cesspool. On the other hand, one can have fun with it. The Global Warming article is a notorious case of ideological bias with AGW enthusiasts acting in quite astonishing ways. I’m currently running a campaign to force them to put a link on the top of the page to other usages such as Martian global warming. You’re supposed to do that for dissimilar usage of similar terms.
The amount of resistance I’ve gotten is astounding. My “Mars global warming” page barely survived deletion and was eventually merged into the “Climate of Mars” page over my objection. Mars global warming will be revived as a separate page, of course, but as an analysis of the political and ideological battle, famous adherents (I hear Fred Thompson’s a fan), etc. with a little note at the top that for the scientific evidence, one should consult Climate of Mars. To make it work (and not go through *another* merge) I’ve had to grow that Climate of Mars page quite a bit. Once it about doubles in size, it’ll be ready because the rules say you don’t merge into a big article like that. No doubt there shall be much huffing and puffing but the bottom line is that the AGW contingent have picked their terrain badly and will eventually be forced to note other usage. It’s just going to take until mid-2008 to do it.
One can fix wikipedia to whatever vision one desires. One just has to desire it enough.