WARNING re Wikipedia!!!!!

[LynnTheDem]

DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING on any Wikipedia site; you can EASILY EDIT, CHANGE, DELETE anything on any Wikiepdia!

Here's an example' I changed the "2004 Indian Ocean earthquake" to the "2304" quake;

The 2304 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) on December 26, 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

Change it back; look at top of the page where it says:

Article Discussion Edit this page History

SO DO NOT take your info as being factual from any Wikipedia site if you actually want to know you've got FACTS. ;)

[Stand and Fight]

1. Thanks so much...

But this is pretty well-known...
;)

[LynnTheDem]

6. Not known by the RWs, that's for sure

Coz they are so often using a Wiki as their "source", lol!

And we may should let the poli-newbies into the trade secrets. ;) :D

[BlueEyedSon]

2. So I guess the DU Demopedia similarly useless (it's also a wiki....)

:(

[pinniped]

3. I thought it was a cookie until I used Firefox to view it after editing...

it in Opera.

Now it's 1812 but I will change it back to 2304.

I mean 2004.

[LynnTheDem]

4. OK who's the smart-arse just changed it to the 1812 quake???

:D

Ahhh HA! So YOU'RE the 1812 smart-arse, LOL!

[pinniped]

5. Sorry, I was testing it out.

:)

[LynnTheDem]

7. Hilarious!

I went in to change back to 2004, felt guilty...and it said 1812, ROTFL!!!

And then I posted my "who's the smart-arse" before I'd seen your post. :D

[pinniped]

9. I got scolded. Either it's automated or someone is up watching...

it 24/7.

--
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has now been reverted or removed. Please use Wikipedia:Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing in articles will normally be reverted quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. --fvw* 11:59, 2005 Jan 23 (UTC)

Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. --fvw* 12:02, 2005 Jan 23 (UTC)--

[LynnTheDem]

10. LOL!!!

You're probably grounded now, too. Nah nah nah NAAAAH nah :D

[pinniped]

14. I would have been a valuable contributor too.

Those pedia people don't know what they're missing.

They didn't send you a private message?

[LynnTheDem]

27. Nope, no msg

I was the first who changed the info; under the radar I guess. They may have noticed the sudden flood of date-changing, lol1

[arcos]

46. nope... any and all changes are quickly checked by the moderators...

Similar to here... any vandalism is quickly reverted to the original version.

And sorry, I don't think it's much fun... it is a great source made up of the collective knowledge of thousands of people around the world. Why make the job of the moderators harder?

[LynnTheDem]

48. And changing a 2004 quake to 1812 or 2304 is easily spotted...all I'm

saying is DON'T RELY on Wikipedia info because it is not reliable unless you source out every item line by line, because not-so-obvious and incorrect changes are ery easy to do and do not always get caught. The Iraq site I was referring to as of 3 days ago still said Hussein "kicked the UN inspectors out of Iraq" in '98 and "wouldn't allow UN inspectors into Iraq" in 2003.

Both statements are bullshit.

[NuttyFluffers]

8. what the hell, you're right! why on earth is edit page on there!?

for people wanting to know how to see it, it's around midnight january 23, 2005. go into history and just cycle back through the previous versions (enter a history and start flipping through the <prev, next> links towards the top).

this is a profoundly stupid option to leave open to the public. i know there must be a moderator checking, but... can't check everything at everytime. stupid.

well scratch wikipedia from my trustable sources... there's a waste of a website.

[BlueEyedSon]

11. Ummmm... that is the whole point of a Wiki. Everyone CAN contribute.

It leverages the knowledge of (potentially) all readers. Judging from the above exchange there are checks and balances. Perhaps there is a moderator for each page and/or subject area who gets alerted on changes.

I guess it's like democracy.... a small minority (even one person) can work within the free & open system to screw everything up for the others!

[NuttyFluffers]

13. still doesn't prevent it from being stupid.

forget that site, i'm gonna stick with books from now on...

and if the wikipedia mod's think this garbage is passable they can suck Kool-Aid Man's bulbous tummy...

so fucking stupid.

[BlueEyedSon]

15. You're right, so is democracy because it gives voice to stupid people.

If we only had a smart, benevolent dictator everything would be fine!

[NuttyFluffers]

18. so you believe wanton editing of all reference books is valid?

get off your democracy trip and deal with facts. facts. facts, got that? any tom, dick, and harry should be able to walk into an encyclopedia printing presses at any time and change anything? because all-mighty democracy sounds pretty we should allow this? just because it can be fixed doesn't mean this should be allowed!

stupid. unbelievably, fucking stupid website. be gone wikipedia.

[BlueEyedSon]

23. Freedom ain't free, baby.

From the looks of things, "wanton editing" is eventually discovered and corrected by the wanton-editing police!

BTW, a Wiki is just another model for participatory information dissemination, and your comparison to an old-fashioned hardbound encyclopedia is inappropriate. It's more like a group blog or "about.com". Who told you it was equivalent to a "reference book"?

The first page says it all: Welcome to Wikipedia, a free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

[NuttyFluffers]

28. which reads "waste of time" to me.

have fun using it. :eyes:

[LynnTheDem]

12. I discovered this when I saw a pile of steaming BS about Iraq on a Wikie

That previously had been correct info. Could not figure out WTF happened...until I saw the "edit this page". That was it for me & Wikie; we parted sources after that.

[NuttyFluffers]

16. same here and spreading the word.

shit like that doesn't need to be passing itself off as truth.

[Sydnie]

17. If there is info there that you think is bogus then tell them that you

dispute the info. They will add a disclaimer and allow you to create a page noting the facts that you think are wrong for debate.

It's a pretty ingenious system actually. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water -- challenge it.

[NuttyFluffers]

19. challenging is one thing, off the cuff editing is another. n/t

[ReverendDeuce]

24. Don't be a pussy -- if it's wrong, FIX IT! It's a _wiki_ afterall...

Good lord, some of you folks are dense. :)

[NuttyFluffers]

31. and you are going to scour the entire thing everyday are you?

i don't have the time, or the interest, in policing such a thing. i'll stick to better methods of getting real information, thanks.

[rman]

50. no single person needs to police the whole thing;

that's the whole point of it not being under central control but rather under distributed, public control.

[BlueEyedSon]

20. But seriously, do you trust ANYTHING you read on the web?

I don't.

It's just a bunch of forums, blogs and propaganda.

FWIW, every entry in Wiki eventually links to an off-site "authoritative" source or gives you enough info to construct a google search to find a source.

[NuttyFluffers]

22. i don't trust anything i read in books 100% either, but!

but any website throwing data at me that can be changed at-will by the entire community of people on the internet gets 0% trust from me.

and thanks for the info, but i think i'll find links to 'authoritative' sources fine without wiki, especially since the links can be essentially deleted (as i already tested out). bullshit website.

[ReverendDeuce]

21. That is the entire point of a wiki, dude... this is nothing new...

I can't believe so many people didn't know this...

Learn about wikis here:

http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

I will continue to trust Wikipedia, for the last two years it's been invaluable to me for getting accuurate information on a variety of subjects I've been researching. I've never come across inaccurate information there.

[BlueEyedSon]

25. Thank you, Rev!

[NuttyFluffers]

26. just click on the right time, hmm?

whatever, i'm going to stick with something more reliable...

if i was a teacher i'd never allow this as a source, and i'm afraid right now there's probably teachers who do unknowingly...

[BlueEyedSon]

29. It's probably more accurate than FOX's website....!

[NuttyFluffers]

32. *sigh* i can't stay mad at you... but i'm still furious at wiki.

come here and give me a hug :hug: yes, even insane men translating squirrel-speak will be more accurate than fox.

[BlueEyedSon]

35. 8^)

[itzamirakul]

30. "...in the KoolAde Man's tummy."

Someone has visited the site and evidently changed the first sentence in the second paragraph to read: "The earthquake originated in the KoolAde Man's tummy."

Cheatp trick...but what the hell it gave me a laugh this AM cause it IS funny....

[LynnTheDem]

LOL!!!

:D

[NuttyFluffers]

33. that was me in an act of rage...

i obviously see the potential for misinformation in this. whole troops of freepers regularly 'updating' wiki to 'the correct facts.' they have no lives and thus all the time to waste on shit like this. uh-uh, no trust from this Kool-Aid Man's Tummy.

[LynnTheDem]

34. ROTFLMAO!!!

HELP! Can't stop laughing, LOL!!!

Man we are ALL gonna get grounded for fucking with that Wiki, LOL!!!

[BlueEyedSon]

36. Al Qaeda use the Wiki to send secret messages to each other all

the time that way.

:)

[NuttyFluffers]

37. I just realized this is a global Mad Libs opportunity...

quite entertaining, but dangerously so.

*sigh* oh well, just waiting for the time the spread of the word of this 'new toy' on AOL chat rooms...

:spank:

[BlueEyedSon]

39. You could probably write a program to edit each page in the Wiki

....change selected nouns, etc. (mad libs style).

But that would be WRONG.

[NuttyFluffers]

40. you could do a lot with it that'd be wrong.

... i can't help laughing what's gonna happen to this 'source' in the future if teen-bops get ahold of it.

heh, and about it's self correcting feature... as if cut, copy, paste was hard to do every few seconds/minutes/whatever -- now times that by 100s of 1000s...

whatever, a good time by all will be found, one way or another...

"And then Moses said unto Pharoah, "a/s/l?" and this hardened the Pharoah's prostate against the Gummy Bears" ... yeah, it's only a matter of time.

[BlueEyedSon]

41. Trusting people to behave is a problem. Sigh.

[NuttyFluffers]

44. do you remember the good early days of the internet?

i do. there was an ocean of intelligent people, even in the very earliest days of AOL. it was like a brand new universe open filled with thoughts, ideas, hopes, it was wonderful. something this beautiful had to be shared!

then it was shared (which is good) but then a funny thing happened. people couldn't keep a good thing going. they decided to do stupid things endlessly until people had to create defenses. people then had to ditch certain areas (ditching AOL and its chat rooms is a good place to start) and be more selective of trusting. whole legions of researchers had to discount websites as resources because links often were invalid after 3-5 years (y'know, just like you and i end up switching e-mail addresses about as often when ISP providers get bought out). people had to become savvy quick. not everyone was able to keep up. several people, after being repeatedly burned were turned off. others, who were more savvy, could still find information, but often found it could be just as laborious as checking the stacks in a library... thus the information age matured.

well, wiki is still young, it will soon go through the obnoxious pre-teen phase... it will have to develop defenses and limit priviledges like everything before it, and then it'll be mature. in the meanwhile i'm not going to bother waiting for it to be a resource to bother with when there's already plenty of 'mature' sources already out there.

the sad pattern of humanity. but through strife, growth. ... and kool-aid man's tummy.

[arcos]

47. Yup, and people here think it's funny to mess with Wikipedia...

:eyes:

[muriel_volestrangler]

52. Gratuitiously messing with wikipedia gets people a bad name

Google for "wikipedia sollog" to find the articles about the self-proclaimed seer and his (or his supporters') attempts to mess with it. He looks like a prat as a result.

Please everyone, don't start fucking around with wikipedia just because you can. Yes, it could get DU a bad name.

[rman]

51. the world at large already has discovered

wiki and the fact that it can be abused. some people overlook the fact that it can be corrected as easily as it can be abused. in fact correcting it is easier since it's just a matter of restoring the most recent backup.

[rman]

38. just wait and see how long it takes before it is corrected

is a source of information that is under centralized control any more reliable in principal?
i'd say people are more easily mislead when they blindly trust some central authority.

[Darranar]

42. Actually, it's a remarkably effective system...

because non-factual edits quickly get fixed.

The vast majority of the information there is accurate, and it tends to provide a variety of points of view.

[Catch22Dem]

43. Wiki is pretty decent for computer geeks and math geeks and the like

Once you start using wiki for politics, obsessed freepers (and sadly DUers too) will start fucking with it and "bending" the facts just a little.

Programmers like me dig wiki because we rarely, if ever, enter bogus shit just to fuck with people. We use it as a valuable reference source for programming.

[NuttyFluffers]

45. the internet was too when it was mainly between school researchers

but we've all seen how that's matured with the growth spurts and growing pains along the way, haven't we?

give it time, this knowledge hasn't sunk in fully yet. but it will. oh trust me, it will.

pray it doesn't become a teeny-bop fad. i'll pray with you too, but i won't trust it.
;) deal?

[kk897]

49. I find Wiki to be an interesting experiment

But it could, perhaps be improved in the interest of disclosure. I think it would be good to, rather than just having the basic text change, show the edits in line with the basic text, sort of like Word 2004 does, if you set it that way. Also, each edit could have something showing who made that edit.

Of course, if you get a lot of edits, it could get pretty chaotic and hard to read. Hm. Maybe there could be some sort of pop-up balloons indicating the edit information, or a system of icons?

Wiki is gaining authority as a reference, and as a consequence many more users will be less aware of the Wiki concept. It's a rather Utopian way of dealing with information, and not everyone will adhere to the ideals behind it, or even understand that there are ideals behind it. It seems a bit like a Catch-22; you want a lot of people to contribute to get the broadest range and depth of knowledge, yet the more people contribute, the more likely information will get FUBAR.

[ArchTeryx]

53. Wow.

Huh. I had no idea about this. Thanks for the heads-up!

[Kire]

54. they have a process to redress grievances

They ban people if they start giving factual errors on purpose. If you have a complaint, you have to stand up and fight for what's right, though.

Here is the arbitration policy.

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