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Wikipedia Corrects Encyclopedia Britannica
javipas writes "Despite all the controversy about Wikipedia's work model, no one can argue the potential of a project that has so effectively demonstrated the usefulness of the 'wisdom of crowds' concept. And that wisdom has detected a large number of mistakes in one of the most revered founts of human knowledge, the Encyclopedias Britannica. Among the wrong information collected on this page are the name at birth of Bill Clinton and the definition of the NP problems in mathematics."
For what it's worth, I seem to recall, a year or two ago, this page having a note at the beginning about how it's not really all that serious of a page, more of a few quick jabs back at Britannica. I'm really very disappointed that it's being posted here with such trumped-up language in the summary.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
That's not ironic, that's coincidental.
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Among the wrong information collected on this page are the name at birth of Bill Clinton and the definition of the NP problems in mathematics."
Seriously though, if you're interested in the details behind this comment, see the article about it in wikipedia.
I submitted some information on the ultimate fate of a USN facility in Viet Nam, that I and two other people had made the effort to actually research in Viet Nam. We interviewed a number of still living Vietnamese who had dealings with the facility and I wrote an article and submitted it to a number of military groups and was thanked for my efforts. After posting it for a while Wikipedia removed my article as not being appropriate to the Wikipedia.
Abuse on wikipedia is systemic and ridiculous. The number of people who have been through it are numerous. The number of reliable, credentialed academics who've been abused, voluminous. The number of times they have covered up their abuses, the number of sheer scandals. (note that they've deleted all of the Essjay material, to cover up and try to hide what he pulled; a long-running scam to abuse and mistreat and demean Catholics).
Wikipedia administrators regularly abuse their power - in any way possible. The caste system of wikipedia is set up this way; gather thousands of mindless edits (and they keep pushing the boundary upwards, for fear that someone might get in and try to fix the system from within). Decry anyone who rightly points out that the system is broken and needs fixing as a "troll."
Abuse and attack; ban and call them a "troll" later; lie about the results of "CheckUser", lie about what a user said and what a metric really means, attack attack and do your best to smear anyone who says anything at all.
This is the method by which wikipedia administrators exist; this is the methodology by which the caste system is enforced. It used to be, way back when, that users were encouraged to seek out another administrator if one was giving them grief for redress: now the policy is against "wheel warring", and no administrator is allowed to undo the action of another for fear of being accused of such, and administrative policies have been changed to enforce this.
In the Wikipedia system, the administrators are the pigs of animal farm - "more equal than others."
Jason Scott put it very well indeed.
So did Jerry Holkins: "a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information."
However, the core of it is worse than that. Wikipedia is not merely controlled by "consensus": it is actively controlled by cliques whose goal is to bias the hell out of articles and keep them in their biased mode. They operate by getting their friends, members of their clique, elevated to admin status and then patrolling these articles, ostensibly for "trolls" but really for anyone who might try to un-bias them. They abuse these newcomers, make false accusations against them, hurl insults and then have their friend ban the newcomer for fighting back. They abuse the prohibitions on "multiple reversions" like a game; instead of a real consensus, all you have to have is one more guy than the opposing viewpoint and you completely control the damn article - and since you have a sympathetic admin on your side, you can have them block the new user for "edit warring", which comes in real handy when you have your buddy bring them to the drumhead trial system called "Arbcom" and say "see he should be banned he's got X blocks already."
Wikipedia is beyond broken - at its best, it is a worthless pile of crap with some whipped cream sprayed on top to try to make it look presentable. At its worst it is a classic case of letting the inmates run the asylum, of the Lord of the Flies syndrome; the worst abusers of the system are those who are "highly-ranked" and "respected" administrators, who operate by fiat, who can and regularly do abuse anyone else without mercy.
The caste system is mercilessly enforced by the admins - without it, they would not have nearly so much power. The whole point of being an administrator of wikipedia is not to make the encyclopedia better but rather to protect your friends, protect your clique, rise in
Where you look - well there's that blog, there's Holkins' commentary, there's Wikitruth, Wikipedia Review, WCityMike's leaving message.
There was Ikkyu's classic discussion - unfortunately, overly censorious admins much like yourself wiped and locked it - again to hide their own abuses.
You have admins like SlimVirgin, who run around abusing the admin tools to hide things (she's also one of the most prolific liars and frauds when it comes to banning anyone she disagrees with for any reason).
There's another classic by Professor Gann, an academic who gave up on wikipedia here: again, someone who was abused by the system and sees the system for what it is.
You refuse to see that Wikipedia has a major problem - therefore, you are part of the problem. Can I give you a precise number of times the system has been abused? No. Can I point you to key cases, key cases in which to this day the reigning clique of Wikipedia refuse to admit they were wrong and that people were, in fact, abused? PLENTY.
Look at the evidence, rather than the lies and deception the clique and abusers throw around. You'll see quite clearly what Wikipedia is really about.
What supposed pros are you talking about? The "pro" of having a site that catalogues the obsessive behavior of fanboys and otaku who want to argue over Pokemon, or comic books? The "pro" of having a supposed "encyclopedia" where dates and facts are more often wrong than right?
The "Cons" are - it's completely worthless. It's a mess, and anything that might get referenced on a regular basis is something on which wikipedia's listing should ABSOLUTELY NEVER BE TRUSTED.
WP needs a vast overhaul. It needs the leading clique thrown out the window, it needs transparency in its processes to be 100% there: the clique have been steadily removing any shred of transparency it used to have, so now all Arbcom decisions are made behind closed doors, all proceedings over whether an admin blocked illegitimately or failed to correctly apply policy are made behind closed doors, and the verdict is always the same: Fuck the Non-Admin, Fuck anyone who's not a friend of an admin.
It used to be that the target of a "checkuser" had the right to demand that the results be made public for all to see: this right was taken away.
It used to be the targets of "checkuser" were presumed innocent until proven guilty: now they expanded the listings to include "probable" and "checkuser doesn't say so but I say so so fuck them anyways" verdicts.
It used to be an appeal to be unblocked was to be visible: now admins just blank or remove the appeal of their own block, lock the page down, and laugh their heads off about the abuse of power they've just abused while other abusive admins congratulate them on banning "trolls."
It used to be appeals were to be made to a public list, where the evidence could be shown, the user could prevent their own, questions could be asked, and the process analyzed and checked. Now it's done behind closed doors, on a locked-off list where the complainant can't even see the progress or discussion (what little exists) and no admin gives two shits enough to ever email back the abused person.
It used to be any administrator had the right and privilege to undo a block. Now, the prohibitions on "wheel warring" serve such that any administrator is required to "discuss" the block with the blocking admin... which means in practice the blocking admin never says a word and just stonewalls till either the block expires or the aggrieved user gets offended enough to say something bad about the blocker, at which point they get banned for "trolling."
This is the culture of wikipedia. Rather than transparency and openness, it's about abuse and covering up for it and making it so that nobody can analyze the process and prove when they are being abusive. Real discussions have moved from the open into the closed doors of private, invite-only IRC chat rooms and email so that administrators can wheel and deal and nobody can see what they are up to.
And the same has happened for the cliques - whereas formerly, organized groups had work pages on Wikipedia, now they've taken it offsite and the admin culture gives them a wink and a nod for their organized harassment campaigns to other users who dare to try to fix the articles they've ruined.
I don't see a "pro" here. Do you?
As far as research into circumcision, there has been an article from the BBC that showed that circumcision helped to cut HIV risk.f ings/aids/434880.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_brie
Well, the only reason I'm aware of is in the Old Testament that circumcision was prescribed for the Israelites. Many Christians have continued this practice because it was said to be more sanitary and was originally prescribed by God and thus intrinsically not a harmful practice.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live