Comments on: Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia and Yahoo!

By: catherine yronwode

catherine yronwode — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:46:12 +0000

Wikipedia is a ghastly mess. For an article to be well written requires only one or two good authors — but for an article to remain well written requires continual policing against the vandals, ignoramuses, and freakish clique members who continually nibble away at facts they do not wish to have known, add false facts that they think are witty, spread urban legends, make dumb misstatements, insert bad grammar, and disseminate illogic, error, stupidity, misinformation, and malice where and when they please. Articles about black people and Jews are vandalized and subtly changed in racially hostile ways daily — and must be policed daily. Articles about the cult religion of Thelema are continually infringing into other topics, and the creatrors of these articles oversee and revert any attempts by non-cult-members to remove their irrelevancies, correct their errors, or take out their fantastical guru-promotions. Biographical articles about Nazi supporters and anti-Semites who are famous in non-military fields (e.g. philosophy, mathematics) get rewritten continually by their fans to downplay or eliminate references to their true political beliefs. And it’s not all hostile, political, religious garbage either. Some of it is just meaningless weirdness. My own biogaphical page at Wikipedia was rewritten at one point to say that i was raised in Sacramento, California, a city in which i have never resided in my entire 59 years of life. Why? Who knows! It’s Wikipedia — and that means it is by nature unvetted, unedited, and unsourced.

By: RogerK

RogerK — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 01:16:58 +0000

Wikipedia is a work in progress, and time will tell the tale. I’ve contributed in good faith, because I’m an idealist. I can sympathize with “justbecause”; there are egotists here who want it their way. So a lot of time can be wasted trying to resolve issues that should not be issues. Seems like too many people are in charge.

For the most part, however, Wikipedians like to collaborate and discuss the changes that are proposed/made by their peers. Most of us are trying to provide accurate and comprehensive articles, and many of us labor to bring an article to “Featured Article” status, the very finest and reliable that Wikipedia has to offer the public.

The process is flawed, but, as with any new organization, it takes time to address management issues. Join us in good faith, and watch Wikipedia’s future unfold.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 22:45:19 +0000

I have been a long-time supporter of Wikipedia. I now find that I was wrong to support it. Wikipedia is suppose to be an objective source of factual information, particularly historical information. Yet, Wikipedia has chosen to censor a link to a video that shows British soldiers assulting children in Iraq, not because the video is irrelevant, unnewsworthy, or inaccurate, but rather because the American army does not want anyone to see it.

This is like removing all images/videos documenting the holocaust. The article before the censorship can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iraq_War&oldid=39541328

However, no one is going to read the past history of the article, so the censorship is rather effective.

How can the public trust Wikipedia if it allows those who have political power to rewrite history? I, for one, will never trust Wikipedia again.

By: Riley

Riley — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:15:09 +0000

Wikipedia is awful. The process overtook the product about a year ago. Over-regulated bickering takes precedent over making an encyclopedia.

By: Eleassar777

Eleassar777 — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 15:29:23 +0000

For statistics, which are the most reliable source of info, see this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm

By: Abhishek

Abhishek — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:21:52 +0000

Hi,

You can just visit this link to view statistical data of wikipedia.org

Link: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=wikipedia.org

and if you want view data of other sites just change the last part of the url, where site name is mentioned. (e.g. change after ‘url=?’ ?= site/domain name}.

I am just waiting for this site to come under 100, then under 10, finally 1st.

By: Yvette Kuhns

Yvette Kuhns — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:34:22 +0000

It is interesting to read different views on any subject. The topic of Wikipedia and Yahoo is interesting for several reasons.

Personally, I don’t really use Wikipedia unless somehow directed to it. It is written by Internet users and edited by Internet users. If you are looking for entertainment, this can be entertaining. But if you are relying on this information to be accurate, you may be disappointed.

The idea is good in theory to share info with other people. But I have seen many articles on the Internet by self-proclaimed experts who actually gave incorrect information and bad advice. The best thing to do is verify any information with experts. But there are many people who will spread the false information like spam or a good rumour. So, you cannot take the info on face value.

The benefits for Wikipedia are obvious. They will get more visitors. But what about Yahoo? Well, this can just be more info I would more likely category as entertaining more than informative only because I do not trust the sources of information. For those who are honestly offering legitimate info, I am not talking about you.

I am certain that this post may upset some people, even if I don’t mean for it to do so. I simply am warning people not to believe everything they read. Even the news reporters are known to report misinformation.

Still, any information is better than no information. Enjoy Wiki on Yahoo and if you don’t like it, don’t go there.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 06:00:00 +0000

thats nice but where is the blog search for Yahoo Search , i currently have to go to Icerocket for search for blogs and Microsoft is currently in delevelopement ( Bill Gates did in his last address awhile back. as for the fact i cant even find my blog or Geocities Feed on Icerocket that Mark Cuban Currently holds stake in .and Icerocket has RSS builder which makes it possible to get Blogs or Website feeds to Everyone in the world . any Book Searching . i can currently read new books on the market on Google Print and on Google Search can ya do that Yahoo!

By: No Scoop

No Scoop — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 20:34:59 +0000

so much for scooping google... they seem to have a comeback for everything. http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/04/just-facts-fast.html

By: JustBecause

JustBecause — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 16:20:54 +0000

Well, because it has been mentioned “why don’t YOU edit something”…and I must respond with this.

I went to Wiki once a few months ago, from a web search I was doing. Obviously I found an article in wiki that fit the bill. Thing is, one of the sites I frequent within the topic was not listed in their external links. So I took upon myself to add it, what a mistake!!

I have never heard so many voices resounding ridiculous arguments about why a site couldn’t be listed there. Worse I made an effort to argue that it should be there – pointless. Based on the conversations and arguments against it was VERY CLEAR that none of them had visited the site before handing down judgement on that site. Okay, big deal right – one thing…one time!…

Actually – this occurs every time I attempt to add something to Wiki. 2 or 3 or more people come out and just start up with ridiculous arguments that really make the article feel “owned”….so what if there is an edit button…you bring hell upon yourself if you push it and actually add something.

Wiki is reamed full of jealous, selfish, unqualifed, and childishness people who use their time and admin power to argue stupidity based on bias to their own opinons and wants/desires. Sorry, not ALL of you I’m sure…but, I’ve been up against enough of it that I sure as hell won’t be editing Wiki ever again…it’s just too time consuming as it is, put in the argument time, whining, etc – and it’s just not worth it.