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News Wikipedia manager lied about background

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Tim S, 2 Mar 2007.

  1. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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  2. bilbothebaggins

    bilbothebaggins What's a Dremel?

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    For me this incident doesn't have any impact on Wikipedia's credibility. They have some stupid editors ... so what. Wikip's a mostly well structured source of information taken to be with a slightly larger pinch of salt that the average printed encyclopedia :)
     
  3. RedBuddies

    RedBuddies What's a Dremel?

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    Plus, there had been a study already on the credibility of Wikipedia's articles. There was like an average 4 errors for Wikipedia and 3 for the Britannica, if memory serves. From what I can remember, it was quite close.
     
  4. Lowsidex2

    Lowsidex2 Minimodder

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    Sure, why the hell not. Since when does the truth have anything to do with facts?
     
  5. randosome

    randosome Banned

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    i guess it depends where you look

    I wouldn't take all of wikipedia as fact, but most of what I've looked at seems pretty much correct from my understanding

    Of course, doesn't it depend where you get YOUR knowledge from as well, maybe your teacher lied, who knows - there isn't a central database of all the facts in the world that is complete and 100% accurate :p
     
  6. Flemshaw

    Flemshaw What's a Dremel?

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    Wikipedia is a dark place

    There's more of this sort of thing going on every day at Wikipedia than an outsider could ever likely imagine. And Jimbo Wales, the supposed adult left in charge of all the kids, not only allows it, but enables it.

    Here's a story that's been circulating around since Essjay blew up.

    It shows how Wales tried to cover up for an actual journalist who got busted writing his own article and trashing his RL adversaries' articles. The evidence was overwhelming, and some admins even provided confirmation, but Jimbo did all he could to make it go away. It's sort of an amazing story.
     
  7. MonkeyCircus

    MonkeyCircus What's a Dremel?

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    Everything written or spoken has to have been 'made up' by someone at somepoint, so technically wikipedia would be posting lies no matter what it does.

    Fact is never fact, it's only common opinion.

    I think wikipedia is a great resource for just that - common opinion.
     
  8. Bluephoenix

    Bluephoenix Spoon? What spoon?

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    I use it as more of springboard to related material on a topic, rather than as a source of fact. when used in that way, it becomes a useful tool.

    the best source of information is not one source, but many sources. I know this seems to be a bit of a 'duh' response but it renders moot the point of wiki as a source of truth or lie, anyone who seriously needs the information will look in more than one place.
     
  9. Redbeaver

    Redbeaver The Other Red Meat

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    i agree wit the post above. one should not rely on only 1 source of information. ever.
     
  10. Aankhen

    Aankhen What's a Dremel?

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    Oooh… you can feel the burn from that Inquirer article. :p
     
  11. Tyinsar

    Tyinsar 6 screens 1 card since Nov 17 2007

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    I like Wikipedia BUT them encouraging the staff to make up bios really does decrease my opinion of the site :grr:


    [Off Topic]
    What are you smoking? 2+2=4 is not an opinion. Is your birthday an opinion? And by the way, If you jump out of an airplane gravity WILL pull you towards the ground - it doesn't care what your opinions are.
    [/Off Topic]
     
    Last edited: 2 Mar 2007
  12. cpemma

    cpemma Ecky thump

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    Even genuine historians can go off the rails at times. And then there's Fox...

    All historical information is subject to change in its interpretation as society changes, Wikipedia is far more fluid, so more up-to-date, than most reference sources. And I'd trust its accuracy over any newspaper's, including The Inquirer.
     
  13. MonkeyCircus

    MonkeyCircus What's a Dremel?

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    Tyinsar, fact is alwasy common opinion, as any good scientist would tell you. Simply, because you can never prove anything to be 100% certain. How do you know that when you jump out of a plane gravity will pull you to the ground? Although it seems absurd to suggest that it wouldn't, you only know that to be true because you have been told that it is true from a number of people, deduced that it must be true because other objects fall under gravity or seen it happen in a film - common opinion. To be honest though, I don't know anybody whose tried it and lived to tell me for certain. I've heard storys of people dieing from it, I've never met one or seen it happen, though.

    EDIT: Thought this was quite interesting - How do you know that gravity isn't pulling the earth towards you?

    That's a bit of an extreme example, but it's true on some level for everything, how are you sure your not imagining this whole conversation? Is this even a conversation? Is the internet a 'real' place... as for 2+2=4, you know there exists a mathmatical proof to prove that 1+1=3?

    The people of tommorow will laugth at what we hold as fact today because you have to accept that all of our sciences, no matter how refined, are flawed. That's quite comforting though, I'd be no fun if there was nothing left to improve.
     
  14. cpemma

    cpemma Ecky thump

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    I'm a good scientist. :thumb:

    Some facts are very probably true (like your birthday - but mistakes can happen!), some facts are probably true, and other facts may only be true in certain circumstances (Newton's Laws don't hold true at light speed). Yet other 'facts' are no more than opinion. :lol:

    Facts are essentially opinions that there is evidence for and that have never (yet) been proved wrong.
     
  15. Techno-Dann

    Techno-Dann Disgruntled kumquat

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    It does, actually. As the Earth's mass accelerates you towards it, your mass does accelerate it towards you, albeit by a trivial amount.

    Scientific laws might just be a pile of oppinions, but they're consistent opinions, and they've been verified by experiment over and over.
     
  16. Tyinsar

    Tyinsar 6 screens 1 card since Nov 17 2007

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    Life without "facts" is like a building without a foundation.

    Since this entire discussion is, in my opinion, pretty much off topic this will be my last post on this.

    Until you go to discuss Evolution & / Creation - :D - then "science has hard facts" (on both sides)

    Well of course - :duh: how could I have missed that? - I'm the center of the universe :jawdrop: , I'm also pretty sure the Sun revolves around the Earth, which is actually flat :rolleyes: But then again, by your logic the Sun, Earth, and you and I may not even exist so why would the reader (assuming they exist) be imagining this discussion?

    :lol: In which case all math would be invalid including the "proof" so it invalidates itself. - you have replicated male bovine droppings.

    For some things that is true - many of us laugh at the old ideas of four or five "elements" (and I have my doubts about some of today's "science" too) - but no one laughs at Newtonian physics or Euclidean geometry - those were functional but incomplete.
     
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