Wikipedia On the Brink? Or Crying Wolf?

netbuzz writes "Might Wikipedia 'disappear' three or four months from now absent a major infusion of cash donations? The suggestion has been made by Florence Devouard, chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation. And while her spokesperson has since backpedaled off that dire prediction, there can be little doubt that the encyclopedia anyone can edit could use a few more benefactors to go along with all those editors."

Comments

Re:I really doubt it.

[suso]

Bandwidth is cheap as dirt.

Eh hem. You wanna bet? Don't let those dime-a-dozen hosting companies that advertise terabytes of bandwidth for a few dollars a month fool you.

But would it really be a loss?

[Webspit]

I mean there's nothing on wikipedia that can't be found elsewhere - and often without the gratuitous vandalism that wikipedia specialises in. I can't say I've ever seen an article on wikipedia in an area where I have knowledge that wasn't wrong, misleading and/or vandalised. These days I tend to avoid wikepedia links in google because the time taken to check the facts in the wikepedia article for accuracy is time I don't want to have to waste.

Re:I really doubt it.

[Blymie]

Great Library of Alexandria?!

Good grief! I'm sorry, but the Wikipedia has got to be one of the biggest banes and blows to knowledge that this world has ever seen. There is absolutely nothing worse, than inaccuracy.. and that's what the Wikipedia is best at.

Yes, some of the core articles.. some.. the ones that are utterly and completely non-political and non-debated.. almost become quality, usable articles. However, every article with any political, and scientific, and religious.. any point of contention... turns into a constant slugfest for the King of the Idiots reward.

How many idiotic urban legends have you heard in your life? How many moronic statements to people make, based upon emotion? How many times have you hear people state things as fact, because "it makes sense to them", not because they know it is fact? How many people listen to everything they hear around themselves, such as news articles or what some bubble gum chewing blonde says, and take it for fact?

I hate to say it, but the average man is a freaking MORON. The average man is best slated to dig a ditch, and hasn't the brains or the knowledge base to comment on virtually anything. Unfortunately, being a common dolt doesn't prevent you from editing the Wikipedia.. in fact, it seems to call to said persons.

So what, you think? Everyone knows that the Wikipedia is not authoritiative. Take everything you read there as tainted, right? Well then, if everything you read on the Wikipedia is "untrusted" (as it should be), then guess what, it's utterly useless.

Knowledge isn't like a current in the breeze. It should not shift and shimmer and be an elusive and ever changing thing. Knowledge should be carved in stone, and only modified when sufficient proof is available for change.

Not because Sir Average Moron heard something 12 years ago, and thinks that the article is wrong.

BAH!!!!!!!

Am I pissed? Yes... and that's because even though everything you read, everything you hear, every bit of knowledge you absorb should be verified as much as possible, at least many traditional encyclopedias try to verify in such a manner. Verification with years of static articles that have very minor touchups to correct occasional errors.

Does that sound like the Wikipedia to you? Do articles that are completely different every time you look at them, seem accurate? After all, if the previous article was accurate, and the new article is sufficiently different... then it or the previous was wrong!

BAH.. I'm too pissed off to continue. Library of Alexandria my ass!

Re:It's an old saying...

[mcrbids]

I get it. Things like clean air, habeus corpus, and logging-free federal forests aren't worthwhile. I was wondering why they were passing away...

You, sir, are a retard.

Clean air? Cleaner now than 200 years ago. Look up London, in the 1700s. It was FILTHY with wood/coal smoke. I'll give on Habeas Corpus, but logging-free federal forests NEVER EXISTED. Logging has (rightly) always been part of the us Dept of Forestry's mission. If logging-free federal forests never existed, how could they go away?

Remember that we fight forest fires, which nature does not. Thus, trees that would naturally burn, don't. The amount of board-feet of wood in U.S. forests today are actually higher than at any other point in the last 200 years.