Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
User avatar
Kumioko
Sucks Mod
Posts: 860
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2017 11:54 pm
Has thanked: 43 times
Been thanked: 177 times

Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by Kumioko » Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:51 pm

Wired has a good article on the effects of socking and the deletion of otherwise positive and useful contributions.

link: https://www.wired.com/story/socked-into-the-puppet-hole-on-wikipedia/
#BbbGate

User avatar
CrowsNest
Sucks Maniac
Posts: 4459
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:50 am
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:09 pm

A great article, in the sense that while Kumioko won't admit it, it paints all sides as absolutely fucking mental, total losers with way too much time on their hands and not enough mountain lions in their backyard, and reminds readers that Wikipedia is an absolute joke, something that doesn't deserve to be seen as an encyclopedia, and could have only got its Google ranking through negligence at best, corruption at worst.

User avatar
FlatSnout
Sucks Noob
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:03 pm
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by FlatSnout » Tue Nov 12, 2019 7:02 pm

CrowsNest wrote:... reminds readers that Wikipedia is an absolute joke, something that doesn't deserve to be seen as an encyclopedia, ...

I don't think the general public actually perceives Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, because it clearly isn't: It's nearly exclusively a random pile of scribblings, but it is usefully (with appropriate caution) for quickly looking up basic core facts, and occasionally finding links to authoritative sources of information.

CrowsNest wrote:... could have only got its Google ranking through negligence at best, corruption at worst.

Google's ranking algos have fundamentally always been based on quantity (in a broadly construed sense), never quality.

User avatar
JuiceBeetle
Sucks Warrior
Posts: 681
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:27 pm
Has thanked: 15 times
Been thanked: 45 times

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by JuiceBeetle » Tue Nov 12, 2019 10:27 pm


Best article I've read in a long time. Respectful, neutral and yet it reveals the dark side of Wikipedia.

FlatSnout wrote:I don't think the general public actually perceives Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, because it clearly isn't: It's nearly exclusively a random pile of scribblings, but it is usefully (with appropriate caution) for quickly looking up basic core facts, and occasionally finding links to authoritative sources of information.

That's the clever way to use wikipedia. I've read about teachers and journalists using it as a reliable source... not so clever.

User avatar
CrowsNest
Sucks Maniac
Posts: 4459
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:50 am
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Nov 13, 2019 12:03 am

FlatSnout wrote:it is usefully (with appropriate caution) for quickly looking up basic core facts
The appropriate caution required for Wikipedia is such that you are always better off simply not even looking at Wikipedia.
FlatSnout wrote:and occasionally finding links to authoritative sources of information.
Only for the lazy or stupid, neither of whom should probably be doing anything that requires looking for sources of authoritative information.

The fact is, people do see Wikipedia as an encyclopedia precisely because they are using it to look up basic facts, and they are using it to find other sources, both of which are things you can use a real encyclopedia for. They are simply too stupid to understand Wikipedia didn't invent this shit, and real encyclopedias do that as a by-product of their main function. You have to know the basic facts and where the authoritative sources are, to write a detailed article

If you're not going to Wikipedia for it's main function, to read the articles, because it's main function is untrustworthy/incomplete/biased crap, then it's pretty fucking stupid to rely on it for these secondary functions, the usefulness of which are inextricably tied to their ability to perform their main function.

They found a way to do it on the cheap, or more accurately, for free. They can do it for free, because the true cost is passed into the user. A reader of Wikipedia looking to use it even as a quick fact checker or starting point for research, at the very least, ends up wasting time they didn't need to, and at worst, ends up looking like a dumbass.

There are literally no upsides to using Wikipedia for anything, except a source of amusement for how dumb people can be. Anyone who thinks there are, hasn't understood what it is or how it works.

User avatar
JuiceBeetle
Sucks Warrior
Posts: 681
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:27 pm
Has thanked: 15 times
Been thanked: 45 times

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by JuiceBeetle » Wed Nov 13, 2019 12:24 am

CrowsNest wrote:The appropriate caution required for Wikipedia is such that you are always better off simply not even looking at Wikipedia.

Generalizing is just silly. There are a lot of valuable and reliable articles (mostly in non-contentious areas, such as mathematics).

CrowsNest wrote:They found a way to do it on the cheap, or more accurately, for free. They can do it for free, because the true cost is passed into the user.

There is truth in that.

User avatar
CrowsNest
Sucks Maniac
Posts: 4459
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:50 am
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Nov 13, 2019 12:49 am

JuiceBeetle wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:The appropriate caution required for Wikipedia is such that you are always better off simply not even looking at Wikipedia.

Generalizing is just silly. There are a lot of valuable and reliable articles (mostly in non-contentious areas, such as mathematics).
What's silly is saying dumb things like that. Mathematics should be the very last topic where it should be possible to find even one useless or unreliable article. The fact you can only testify that "a lot" are not, speaks well to the fact you're the one who is generalizing here.

If I was genuinely aware of any specific use case where my statement does not hold true, I would have mentioned it. I have never encountered one, or heard anyone mention one, not from an informed position. And it is rather my business to know these things, being a serious Wikipedia critic and all.

If you want specifics, then feel free to give me a specific example where you think the statement is false, and we'll see if it is or not, most likely with mathematical precision.

User avatar
FlatSnout
Sucks Noob
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:03 pm
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by FlatSnout » Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:44 pm

CrowsNest wrote:
FlatSnout wrote:it is usefully (with appropriate caution) for quickly looking up basic core facts
The appropriate caution required for Wikipedia is such that you are always better off simply not even looking at Wikipedia.

Well, that calls for just one single example to disprove: Is there a faster and significantly more reliable way to find the DoB of Winston Churchill?

CrowsNest wrote:
FlatSnout wrote:and occasionally finding links to authoritative sources of information.
Only for the lazy or stupid, neither of whom should probably be doing anything that requires looking for sources of authoritative information.

The fact is, people do see Wikipedia as an encyclopedia precisely because ...

I have to either disagree with the premise of people seeing Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, or what an encyclopedia is.
What I experience people doing (in real life, and thanks to mobile devices) is that they're primarily (nearly exclusively) looking up simple non-controversial facts. In real life, I have never once heard anyone use the word "encyclopedia" (or any word equivalent or similar thereto) in conjunction with Wikipedia.
What a general encyclopedia is, is a collection of short articles (short to the point of often bordering abstracts) about any topic or subject of not too narrow interest. And the information contained, in said articles, having been obtained & written by experts (meaning: people who's been verified as competent, i.e. educated & experienced, in regard to the topics' they're writing about).

In short: Close to none (none outside the tangled universe of Wikipedians) regards Wikipedia as being encyclopedic.
Note! That's from my personal experience, and may be tainted by my location (I'm not in the US, and I'm not an American).

Having said that, then: What an awfully waste of human lifetime it's been & is, creating & "maintaining" so much text (Wikipedia articles) of so dubious quality. (Wikipedia is a bit like having & using what's postulated to be gold, solely for its weight, even though a common ordinary stone would have done equally fine.)

User avatar
FlatSnout
Sucks Noob
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:03 pm
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by FlatSnout » Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:41 pm

JuiceBeetle wrote: ... There are a lot of valuable and reliable articles (mostly in non-contentious areas, such as mathematics).

Minor side-note: Mathematics is an area, which, on Wikipedia, is far more troubled than one would suspect on first thought ;)
Article troubles, within that area, seem to have two major different causes.
1. Articles concerned with reasonably basic topics, are somewhat littered with editors being schoolchildren, who either don't really know what they're talking about (and certainly lack overview/perspective) or are super-happy to add content (utterly failing to realise the value in "less is more", i.e. causing obfuscation rather than clarity).
2. Articles concerned with reasonably advanced topics, are often authored by people who truly are competent in regards to the topic they're editing. Unfortunately, deep understanding & knowledge about a topic, is not the same as being great at presenting it. Not to mentioned that the turf of "advanced" being in inherent contradiction to Wikipedia's desire of articles which can be read & understood by anyone. - Great authors within topics on math? : Certainly exists, but do not edit Wikipedia. For more than the first decade of Wikipedia, one of major obstacles to editing, was having to learn the archaic markdown syntax (which wasn't even in much use when Wikipedia was born). Spice that with math's need for more that writing plain text, and ... (I wonder if WMF is liable for having caused any mathematicians to go insane)

User avatar
JuiceBeetle
Sucks Warrior
Posts: 681
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:27 pm
Has thanked: 15 times
Been thanked: 45 times

Re: Socked Into the Puppet-Hole on Wikipedia

Post by JuiceBeetle » Thu Nov 14, 2019 8:45 am

FlatSnout wrote:In short: Close to none (none outside the tangled universe of Wikipedians) regards Wikipedia as being encyclopedic.

I agree with that observation. It was only after I became an editor that I learned there are some people, who regard wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Never had that idea before.
It's a way for them to justify their importance, so I was like "Meh, if that's what you need, so be it."

Post Reply