Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Yes.

41 (48.8%)

No.

43 (51.2%)

Total Members Voted: 84

[kaijyuu]

For A, I'm curious how you know that undiscovered hoaxes are rampant if, you know, they're undiscovered.
For B, source please~ Those listed hoaxes are both mundane and amusing, so I see no reason to believe that they're hiding any for either of your stated reasons. If there's a more accurate list somewhere, link it.



You can make a solid inductive argument here if you actually prove that these things have been rampant in the past. The currently put forth information leads to the opposite conclusion.

[ab9rf]

For A, I'm curious how you know that undiscovered hoaxes are rampant if, you know, they're undiscovered.
For B, source please~ Those listed hoaxes are both mundane and amusing, so I see no reason to believe that they're hiding any for either of your stated reasons. If there's a more accurate list somewhere, link it.

As to undiscovered hoaxes, I know several people who amuse themselves by adding hoaxes and watching to see how long it takes them to get found.  And there are some I've found myself.  I know one editor who goes around adding innocuous untrue statements to various articles, sourcing them to purported articles behind paywalls that (if you had access to the paywall, which almost no Wikipedian does) would turn out to be on some other topic entirely, or even not exist.  (This person has a laundry list of paywalls that display the paywall authentication before checking to see if the linked resource actually exists, so he can create an indefinite supply of bogus citation references that almost nobody at Wikipedia can actually check.  And, of course, almost nobody ever does.)

As to (b), I will not publish a list of faults in Wikipedia.  History has shown that when this is done, Wikipedians quickly correct the listed faults and then claim to be (once again) perfect.  That just feeds their delusion, and I won't do that.  Wikipedia needs to correct its systemic faults; providing them with a list of one-off article faults won't help with that.  I'd rather educate people to understand where and how Wikipedia fails than assist Wikipedians in propping up their failed venture.

[ChairmanPoo]

Some eight years ago I made a funny one in a certain page not quoted there. It lasted about two months, when it was finally removed it was due to lack of citations (they still argued about it in the talk page)

[Starver]

I think that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lame_edit_wars is worth a look.  Personally, for the humour value, but if you're a Wiki-detractor then it's something you could seriously use as an argument as well.

Incorrect, vandalised or downright hoaxed information that stays uncaught (ISTR once editing and/or reverting a page claiming that Europe[1] was on Mars) is definitely a problem, but if you Google something that you know a little about and find a standard web-site that encapsulates the required information but is blatantly incorrect in some way then you have no real recourse.  There's also no real way to be able to convey your sense of foreboding to any future reader of that Googled-for page's inaccuracies, never mind actively qualify half-arsed explanations that don't really do the subject justice, etc...

Wikis do solve these other problems.  But at the expense of "equal and opposite experts" battling it out when it isn't clear-cut.  Sometimes it's over terminologies, interpretations or semantics, sometimes even over more trivial things such as UK/US English variations (e.g. "Orange (Colo{u}r)").  Being inadvertently caught within the cycle of change-and-revert-and-unrevert-and-rechange cycle (at least taking an interpretation as gospel, and basing upon that your future acceptance of other sources) is probably the biggest trap you can fall into.  IMO.





As to the whole subject of citing Wiki, as opposed to its usefulness in general (and, indeed, launchpadding) reference, I wouldn't.  But there are plenty of ways to qualify your references to at least give the same "Caveat Emptor"[2] to your readership that one should personally have taken account of in the first place...


[1] It wasn't the page on Europe, but something that located the subject as being in Europe, which was "a continent on Mars" or similar.

[2] Or, as I have heard it rephrased, for the web: "Caveat Browsor"

[Leafsnail]

Bot v Bot is clearly the best (don't click on the image link).  There's some funny about a faulty bot getting stuck in an infinite loop reverting itself.

[thegoatgod_pan]

As a professional academic who grades papers with wikipedia citations and loves wikipedia I must say...No

Wikipedia is an amazing reference--you go there to find out the gist of the subject and to point yourself to some keywords for a deeper search and a bibliography.  It is not, and not meant to be a final source.  Most decent articles will end in a page of links of citations and book titles those are legitimate sources. Just use those. Otherwise you really didn't do your job researching the topic. One google search does not equal good academic work, even if the wiki page is excellent

Also some low speciments of humanity purposefully sabotage wiki pages.

[Kogut]

That page only lists the hoaxes that Wikipedia's community (a) has discovered and (b) is willing to admit.  There's many many more that remain unfound, and of course other that they have found but don't mention, either because they are not that funny, or because they're too embarrassing to talk about.  Fictitious sources in support of untrue or dubious claims are rampant.

and (c) - probably about 0,1% of Wikipedia editors know about this list. But I doubt that many are hidden as " because they're too embarrassing to talk about".