There’s a lot of misinformation on Wikipedia too, of many different kinds. Some smaller pages exists purely for someone’s PR. I’ve seen blatantly false (but “verifiable”) stuff too but the most common thing is to have pages that are just creative with the truth.
Also sometimes I’ll notice an article make multiple different claims that all point to the same source and then check the source and realize it is not a valid source for all of those claims, just some.
And also there’s stuff that gets flagged as verified based on extrapolation of data from a combination of sources. For example: one source says “John Doe facing 1 billion dollars fines if found guilty” and another source says “John Doe was found guilty”, then the article says “John Doe fined 1 billion dollars after being found guilty” as verified, then you go search the web and find no mention of any fines actually being issued following the verdict.
And then there’s the scots language wiki;
Man why people so mean. I highly doubt he did actual damage
I think this person has possibly done more damage to the Scots language than anyone else in history.
Apart from Christopher Lambert in Highlander.
Lambert, Lambert, what a prick.
The famous French Highlander!
My historic house has a Wikipedia page, I’ve tried updating it with information I know is accurate (I mean, I live here), but it was always removed. Must have a primary source that’s not “individual research” like, you know, counting the bedrooms or fireplaces.
Which is what lead to me getting our city’s newspaper to interview me, print several facts and stories, and now that published article is a primary source.
During this process I realized that Wikipedia is pretty goddamn serious.
To a degree. But you also run into the classic XKCD problem of Citogenesis. This isn’t a hypothetical, either.
Had you, for instance, mentioned something you read about your own historical house on Wikipedia in the city’s newspaper, it would now be a cited piece of information that Wikipedia links onto.
There’s also the problem of link rot. When your small town newspaper gets bought up by ClearChannel or Sinclair media and the back archives locked down or purged, the link to the original information can’t be referenced anymore.
That’s before you get into the back-end politics of Wikipedia - a heavy bias towards western media sources, European language publications, and state officials who are de facto “quotable” in a way outsider sources and investigators are not. Architectural Digest is a valid source in a way BanMe’s Architecture Review Blog is not. That has nothing to do with the veracity of the source and everything to do with the history and distribution of the publication.
I once posted a Wikipedia article to r/TodayILearned, and my post went really popular. Someone a few hours later then edited the Wikipedia page to contradict my Reddit post title, reported my post to the subreddit mods, and my post got taken down.
Imagine being the level of asshole that would spend the time to do this. I’m not surprised, just…disappointed.
Why be disappointed. That’s more effort than most people go through on the internet. I’m actually impressed.
Reddit gonna reddit
Is that Wikipedia page accurate today?
I’m not sure. It was about the “turbo” button on 80s PCs, and how its function could be confusing to users depending on how it was wired. You look at the talk page and edit history there’s still a lot of arguments about this.
Most of the edits to try and say turbo is the slow mode were done by the one person, they seem to think they are right when all the evidence points to the contrary. I’m glad they seem to have given up for now.
Heh maybe you inspired them :p
