A Look at the Editorial Changes on Wikipedia

prostoalex writes "New York Times Technology section this weekend is running an extensive article on Wikipedia and recent changes to the editorial policy. Due to high level of partisan involvement some political topics like George Bush, Tony Blair and Opus Dei are currently either protected (editorials are allowed only to a selected group of Wikipedia members) or semi-protected (anyone who has had an account for more than four days can edit the article). From the article: 'Protection is a tool for quality control, but it hardly defines Wikipedia,' Mr. Wales said. 'What does define Wikipedia is the volunteer community and the open participation.'"

Comments

Protection dosen't work

[1337 Apple Zealot]

I am a former contributor to Wikipedia, making over 10,000 edits before giving up and becoming a vandal. Protection is easy to bypass. The easiest way to bypass it is by registering sleeper accounts, where you create a account, then come back a few days later to vandalize the article. Even better is by making credible edits before going on a vandalism rampage.

Wikipedia's vandalism methods are very ineffective. Wikipedia gets over 200,000 edits a day, around three a second. Even with bots and hundreds of patrollers, lots of vandalism gets through, sometimes for months. The vandals know it, and they make fun of Wikipedia. Like Willy on Wheels, Wik/Gzornenplatz, North Carolina Vandal, etc.

The trouble is Wikipedia is now one of the most visited sites on the web, no thanks to Google bombing which means Wikipedia shows up as the top result for many searches now. Over 60 million edits have been made, a lot of them vandalism. My advice is, get out of Wikipedia as fast as you can, if you are an administrator, resign. Remembmer that many colleges and schools will now fail your assingments for citing Wikipedia. People have been harrased and libeled on Wikipedia. It is only a matter of time before someone really gets hurt.

Wikipedia is basically dangerous. Many of its top editors are ex-usenet trolls. The worst section of all is Userboxes, which were invented by a vandal and is a constant source of vandalism by admins.

Wikipedia, it is not as free as you think. Remember, this is coming from a former editor of over 10,000 edits. I know the system better than many admins do. Type in special:log/block on the Wikipedia address bar to see how much vandalism Wikipedia gets. It has to ban over 5000 accounts/ip addresses a week!

Re:wow can we say whores

[IHC Navistar]

Wow. Someone who doesn't have a clue really hates life. First of all, no taxpayer money goes to Wikipedia. Second, if you allow everyone to edit all of the articles, then every jackass and his mother is going to do something stupid with any given article. Third, "Artificial_Soul" needs to grown up and take this blatantly untrue liberal crap somewhere else, like on a P.E.T.A. or GreenPeace site.

Now, even though I am a somewhat conservative person, I do tolerate liberals and their argument (some are even legit and rational), but I will say that it is these clueless extremists who blame all of their misfortunes on "evil corporations" and want to us to live on cummunes, that give liberals their negative image. Artificial_Soul is a *PRIME* example.

Wikipedia *is* free information, but that doesn't mean that the Wikipedia operators cannot keep out any bias they perceive in their articles (yes, as the operators of the site, the articles ARE theirs). This is just another case of someone feeling that they are being violated because someone is editing out the clear biases that they support. Just because you think something is true doesn't make it true, no matter who you are. Wiki has the right to edit out anything they want, regardless of if you agree. If you want to keep opinions that you want, regardless of how biased or unbiased they are, then get off you ass and start your own "Wiki"-type site.

The only thing your comment does is it shows what happens when you give a yuppie who is mad at the world a computer. You must have smoked some BAAAD granola!

-----

Sig Sauer

Re:wikipedia!=encyclopedia

[maxpublic]

The point of an encyclopedia or any record isn't to be absolutely right the first time, it's to be as right as possible

Which in many cases Wikipedia certainly is not, for precisely the reasons that others have listed. Sometimes folks fuck up because they don't care to double-check their facts, sometimes they fuck up deliberately because they have an agenda they want to press on others, and at other times they engage in vandalism or the much-harder-to-catch wikipranks. And there's always that group that cites propaganda as 'fact' because they're absolutely convinced in the 'rightness' of their cause, and refuse to entertain the notion that perhaps they aren't in possession of the Absolute Truth(TM).

Anyone claiming that Wikipedia is just as accurate, or even close to as accurate, as a professional encyclopedia written by acknowledged experts in their respective fields is a moron. Probably a moron with an agenda, who's written some half-assed amateur entry in Wikipedia and thinks that fact makes him as knowledgeable as any real expert.

Let the idiots, fools, and fanatics contribute to your encyclopedia and you're bound to get idiotic, foolish, and fanatical entries.

Max

Re:YRO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Kokgobbler,

You: "Gobble gobble gobble!"

I just wanted to say, if you can take 5 seconds out from giving head to the /. community, that your post sucks.

You: "Gobble gobble gobble...."

Alrighty then! I'll be getting out of here ASAP.