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Wikipedia Wars -- Lake Express Ferry
vhfer writes "Wikipedia Warfare has become the latest tool in the battle between rival lake transport systems. The Lake Express Ferry, which links Milwaukee and Michigan, bypasses Chicago traffic. The competing SS Badger runs from Manitowoc, an hour North of Milwaukee, to Ludington, Michigan. The article in the Milwaukee Journal details efforts by SS Badger supporters to highlight some of the delays and problems experienced by the Lake Express, in an apparent effort to divert some traffic to the Badger. Numerous edits to the article added links to news articles critical of the Lake Express, and some derided presidential candidate John Kerry's 2004 ride and the political value of it. The operators of the SS Badger deny responsibility for all the postings, and also say they aren't Internet savvy enough to alter a Wikipedia article."
After all, it seems that Wikipedia readers are more interested in much different topics anyhow.
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...without a link to the Lamest Edit Wars in Wikipedia.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Is it just me, or does the headline sound like the title of a bad Anime?
"Giving first aid the already disheveled hair projection" -Anakin
You confuse "intelligent" with "computer savvy."
A ferry operator has a different skillset than you. They might not even be interested in learning how to use Wikipedia.
This points out the biggest problem with Wikipedia, people are selfish. When questions of NPOV come up the disscusion offten becomes not what the NPOV is but who's oppinion will be included in the article and accepted as truth.
There is a Penny-Arcade comic that sums wikipedia up nicely I can't (due to a proxy) look it up right now...
Disclaimer: I am a huge Wikipedia fan... but I only "trust" non political geek culture (Comics, video games) to be relitivly accurate.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
May I just be the first to say:
Badgers? We don't need no steeenking badgers!
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Wikipedia works rather well at the core. Articles about science topics, or most history topics are OK. There are issues with current event topics, but there are plenty of editors working on those. the real problem that no one mentions with Wikipedia is on the fringes. there are 1.3 or so Million english articles. Some of them are poorly translated paragraphs from other languages. Some of them are straight lifts from a Press Release, and some of them are pretty incomplete. This is one such case. While editors can work on NPOV more directly with articles like George W. Bush or Jesus, there are only a handful of editors working on the fringes. I was hitting up the random pages button, and a few days ago, I stumbled across the "Miss Bikini of the Universe" page (no jokes, please). It consists of a few poorly translated paragraphs, a picture that's three years out of date (but attractive nonetheless), and a notice that Ukraine's candidate won the most recent one (which apparently was over the weekend in China somewhere), but no mention of the winner's name, DoB, etc. Now, I tried to do some cleanup - verb tenses, complete sentences, etc., but the page needs an awful lot of work, and frankly, I'm busy, and the orginal writer looks like he ran a few news articles through Babelfish.
I like Jason Scott's rant about Wikipedia over at ASCII. It is related to this next Wikipedia War in the following way:
"It's that there's a small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the mass of twiddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be that your take on things is off from the majority."
A related issue is that with some topics, you will *always* have debates. Certain wiki topics will always cause people to be at "war" with each other. I doubt this will kill off wiki technology, but eventually there probably will be some social conventions to handle disputes. Or, perhaps a more rigid technology will take the place of wikis. Who knows.
Sorry to ramble. My point is just that we need to be careful that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. In plain language, a wiki war doesn't mean that wikis are bad.
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I hate how Slashdot rarely links to the ACTUAL THING THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT. Lake Express
Who wants to get in an edit war with me at the Edit war article. Then we can create an article called "Meta edit war" and get in a fight over whether that is a neologism! Ah, the wonders of Wikipedia...
I say we just rename both Ferrys after Stephen Colbert and call it a day.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
For the same reason I trust welders, plumbers, electricians and the like to do their job and not necessarily expect them to either know what wiki is, or know how to edit an entry on it.
We simply don't need everyone in the world to be able to do tech things. They could be exceedingly good at what they do. Not knowing how to edit on wiki is not a mark of intelligence, it's a mark of how much you understand web technologies.
Despite it's popularity, the web is not the be all and end all of how the world works.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
While many slashdot visitors are not exactly savvy in the culinary arts, I would guess that most of us can use a fork pretty well.
Sure we know how to use fork! It is easy - it doesn't even take any arguments.
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They are very different ships for different purposes. The Lake Express is newer, faster, and more prone to breakdowns and postponed trips due to the higher speed. The SS Badger is older, slower, and more reliable due to it being an 'old fashioned' coal-burning boat that chugs slowly across the lake. The Lake Express is pretty much assigned seating, enclosed from the elements, with very limited space outside on deck. The SS Badger is completely open seating and you can spend the entire trip outside enjoying the views, the rain, and the coal soot.
If you want to minimize your time spent on the water and travel in a new, state-of-the-art, fast boat, take the Lake Express. If you want to prolong the experience and enjoy being out on the lake, take the SS Badger.
The two companies can compete all the want, but I think they have two different customer bases.
What? Nobody (at least, nobody above +2) has posted a link to WikiTruth? Well, let me do so then.
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This highlights a more fundamental problem than the fact that Wikipedia is vulnerable to edit wars, and that is people's/company's/political party's disregard for truth. I have a good friend who was part of a recent high-profile gubernatorial race. I was surprised to hear from him that they had to constantly guard the wikipedia page about their candidate as it would constantly be vandalized. Is it just me, or do you also get a kind-of "sick" feeling when you hear about these kind of things? This is especially true when you take a step back and think about what the potential Wikipedia (and other sites like it) holds for improving the lives of people all over the world. When you look at it from this perspective, well written, unbiased articles, in my opinion, hold a certain level of sacredness. And when you see it being defiled you can't help but to feel disgust.
Now, I know, this example is "small peanuts" in the grand scheme of things. However, it just makes me sick when I see this kind of intentionally malicious behavior focused on something with a primary goal to improve the lives of all.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Yeah... a better example would be a doorbell. Especially if you're a mac user.
Wow...simply not true. I know it might surprise the demographic who reads slashdot, but there are still lots of people out there who are very uncomfortable with using computers to do anything. They aren't stupid - they probably have many skills that us computer-literate folk would have a very hard time acquiring. But, they may just barely understand the concept using a computer to browse the web withoug feeling like they can figure out how to edit a webpage. The internet (and most things technology) are viewed as a giant mystery to some people - they are happy to use it, but the thought of being able to edit or contribute is just foreign.
Lastly, anyone who uses their own ignorance as an argument is someone to be avoided.
I agree with your point that anyone could find someone to help edit a page if they didn't want to do it themselves. But, I find it ironic that so many people here were venomous toward the RIAA for going after grandmothers who "obviously" didn't know enough to download music, but are happy to vilify the people playing the "ignorant" card when the issue at hand doesn't isn't something slashdot can rally behind.