The Wikipedia killer

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Graaf Statler
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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by Graaf Statler » Sat Mar 31, 2018 1:43 pm

CrowsNest wrote:A proper look revealed this could be as simplistic as the fact poorly educated editors are picking up studies as references, cutting and pasting a paragraph into a Wikipedia article, whether it is important or even relevant, and they in turn are being seen more often by academics. Worrying, but not proof Wikipedia is accepted by academia.

This is the way most articles on WP-NL are build up. This system is not only violating many times our strikt copyright rules, but the result is also very poor articles. Because, most times the editors don't have a clou about the subject, and glue something out of fragments to a article.

I have rewritten a few of this kind of articles about things I have knowledge about, not academic, many times technical. And these articles are unlogical build up, with many blunders, not because they were mistakes in the used source, but because the editor had no idea where he was talking about. And many time these articles where poisoned by anonymous later added trivia, what made the article even more complete incomprehensible. The result is a article what is complete rubbish at the end, what can't repaired, and what you have to rewrite. And I am afraid this is the way most articles of Wikipedia are built up, also on other wiki's

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AndrewForson
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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by AndrewForson » Sat Mar 31, 2018 4:50 pm

CrowsNest wrote:
AndrewForson wrote:Some of the scientific content of Wikipedia is not too bad.
I beg to differ. Not sure what you mean by not too bad, but I think it says a lot that you didn't say quote good, or even good, or even OK. Surely after twenty years, it should be possible to say "some" of the science content is good, even excellent?

What I mean is that I wrote some (about 100 articles) of it myself, in the days when I thought that worth doing. When Wikipedia collapses under the weight of its own intrinsic contradictions, some of the better scientific content may be salvaged from the wreckage and repurposed by people who know what they are doing. That will not happen unless and until the learned bodies realise what a threat Wikipedia is while it staggers along from one crisis to another, sucking up money and energy like a vampire squid.

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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Mar 31, 2018 5:48 pm

AndrewForson wrote:What I mean is that I wrote some (about 100 articles) of it myself, in the days when I thought that worth doing. When Wikipedia collapses under the weight of its own intrinsic contradictions, some of the better scientific content may be salvaged from the wreckage and repurposed by people who know what they are doing. That will not happen unless and until the learned bodies realise what a threat Wikipedia is while it staggers along from one crisis to another, sucking up money and energy like a vampire squid.

Well, let me drop the same advice I've given to others before: do not give content to the Wikimedia Foundation. If you want it to be "safe" from hackery and insane censorship and want to maintain any quality control, put up your own webhost and drop it there. Release it under the usual CC license if you want people to use it. If it's good enough and well-referenced, they will come to you and ask to reuse your content. There is no greater satisfaction than telling a WP robot fan to either use it and credit you; or to just get stuffed.

(And don't ask anyone at Wikipediocracy for THEIR opinions. Because they have become untrustworthy. WO is now run by Wikipedia fans--period. And Greg Kohs, about whom we can only say "lol".)
Last edited by ericbarbour on Sat Mar 31, 2018 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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As a reminder: Why Wikipedia Will Fail, 2015

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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:00 pm

AndrewForson wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:
AndrewForson wrote:Some of the scientific content of Wikipedia is not too bad.
I beg to differ. Not sure what you mean by not too bad, but I think it says a lot that you didn't say quote good, or even good, or even OK. Surely after twenty years, it should be possible to say "some" of the science content is good, even excellent?

What I mean is that I wrote some (about 100 articles) of it myself, in the days when I thought that worth doing. When Wikipedia collapses under the weight of its own intrinsic contradictions, some of the better scientific content may be salvaged from the wreckage and repurposed by people who know what they are doing. That will not happen unless and until the learned bodies realise what a threat Wikipedia is while it staggers along from one crisis to another, sucking up money and energy like a vampire squid.
Well, you're being too humble if you don't even rate your own work as better than not too bad.

As for salvage operations, ask yourself this, using your own contributions as a guide - would you rather take the time necessary to go through all those articles to review them, removing the crap and retain any useful edits since you left (which will undoubtedly require some work, if only stylistic). Or would you rather just start them again from scratch on a learned institutions platform, taking advantage of what will undoubtedly be a better interface. I don't know what your field was, but I know they've had terrible troubles with stuff like formatting equations. All because MediaWiki is a bit crap, being all things to all men, but useful to none.

Even if you took the view that the versions to be rescued should be those you entered originally (which could well be critically out of date, depending on the topic), goodness knows what might break as part of the transfer. Wikipedia has a shit-ton of proprietary templates and boondoggles, often interdependent and poorly understood, let alone documented.

This is all moot, as I really can't see the day a learned institution creates its own encyclopedia, certainly not one that is anything like Wikipedia. If they see it as a threat, one that needed to be counteracted, they'd have surely acted by now.

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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:02 pm

Graaf Statler wrote: I am afraid this is the way most articles of Wikipedia are built up, also on other wiki's
It is certainly exactly how many articles on en.wiki are built.

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Graaf Statler
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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by Graaf Statler » Sun Apr 01, 2018 8:36 am

CrowsNest wrote:
Graaf Statler wrote: I am afraid this is the way most articles of Wikipedia are built up, also on other wiki's
It is certainly exactly how many articles on en.wiki are built.

A other problem is many wikipedians on WP-NL can't write, and start to translate these articles from WP-EN and other wiki's, so in this way this misinformation is spread over the whole globe.
Wikimedia-NL has even a "Education Program" where they let students translate articles selected by Wikipedians form other wiki's. These Wikipedians are most times clearly autistic, can't write themself, and select articles because they look great. But they don't have a clou if the information is correct, or if it is not copyvio.
I consider this program as very irresponsible, because if a article contains copyvio the student is responsible. Because he or she placed that translation under the Dutch copyright regulation on WP-NL, and is known by name.

But at the moment I mentioned the danger of reusing this "free" material by the consumer, or the danger of copyvio in general, or this legal danger for a student I was trolled out. At the end even with the help of WMF.
And, we have in Holland a no warning copyright system, and no fair use
So, if you use. something what is protected by copyright, even a small bit, you can get a high bill from a lawyer what you have to pay. Even if it was one minute on the internet, a screenshot will do in court.
And copyright law cases are cheap and very attractive. Did you know there are photographers in Holland who are making a living only out of law cases? Whit the help of some law firms?

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AndrewForson
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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by AndrewForson » Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:12 am

CrowsNest wrote:This is all moot, as I really can't see the day a learned institution creates its own encyclopedia, certainly not one that is anything like Wikipedia. If they see it as a threat, one that needed to be counteracted, they'd have surely acted by now.

Such things have happened. In mathematics and computer science there are projects such as the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (supported by its own foundation), the nLab (supported by Canegie Mellon and an AFOSR grant), GroupProps and others: see a list at https://subwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

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Graaf Statler
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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by Graaf Statler » Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:23 pm

There are more of this kind of Wiki's, look for instance here. The information about Leica camera's there is far better, but there articles are blown away bij the Google power who prefers the most times poor Wikipedia articles. And, I think that is what makes it for for instance a group of universities unattractive to start their own wiki. Because the result will always deep down in Google. I said it before, Wikipedia is a so called border blaster what blows everybody and everything what is a better idea away whit the help of Google.

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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by CrowsNest » Sun Apr 01, 2018 1:43 pm

AndrewForson wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:This is all moot, as I really can't see the day a learned institution creates its own encyclopedia, certainly not one that is anything like Wikipedia. If they see it as a threat, one that needed to be counteracted, they'd have surely acted by now.

Such things have happened. In mathematics and computer science there are projects such as the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (supported by its own foundation), the nLab (supported by Canegie Mellon and an AFOSR grant), GroupProps and others: see a list at https://subwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
Are they in anyway like Wikipedia though? Can I rock up with my post-grad knowledge and edit? Safe in the knowledge that any errors/mistakes I make will be recitified by them?

Graf makes a good point too - no matter how good they might be, they are probably invisible even to those in the field, thanks to Wikipedia's preferential treatment by Google.

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Graaf Statler
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Re: The Wikipedia killer

Post by Graaf Statler » Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:45 pm

It should be a great idea if a few university's with a good reputation should start a wiki in a form of a cooperation with other university's in different country's. Anyway it should be a far away better idea then to cooperate with WMF as a educational instituut. Universty's have the expertise, they could use such a wiki for there education projects, and both for you an me it would be interesting.

I could get some education what a I have complete missed in my life, I could share my most times practical technical knowledge, and you could share your post-academic, post-grad knowledge. It should be a win win situation for everybody and the whole world.
But Google makes this scenario impossible, and WMF too, because if you, me or a someone else comes up with a better system like this, he or she is trolled out by the trolling machine of mister Alexander and friends. Because they have total different interest, they are only interested to build a gigantic bureaucracy.

Renée mentioned the problem before on WO, the group what has the power and the resources is not the same group what is supposed to write a reference work. The first group has other interests, and is the most powerful group. And that is the wiki drama in a nutshell, with Google as a catalyst.

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