How to use Wikipedia properly: the best and worst of Wikipedia

[zordrac]

Many young people see Wikipedia as an extension of Google, which in turn they see as essentially just using the internet. For people who never saw actual encyclopaedias, let alone actual individual reference books, they have no idea just how bad Wikipedia is. I remember in high school, just 35 years ago, that we weren't supposed to use encyclopaedias for research even, because encyclopaedias were amalgamations of individual reference books. We were taught that biased reference books were much better than supposedly unbiased pieces that lacked knowledge. Encyclopaedias, even the amazing World Book Encyclopaedia and its greatest competitor, Encyclopaedia Britannica, were bad because they were amalgamations, and you were better to go to your source.

The greatest problem with Wikipedia is summed up in one policy: Neutral Point of View, or NPOV. If they would just abandon that policy, and replace it with accuracy at all costs, they would be a whole lot better.

Another policy that is almost as bad as NPOV is the No Original Research (NOR) policy, which claims that original sources, which we were always taught were the best sources, are terrible.

This is why Wikipedia is bad, because they exclude the best parts of research and replace it with the worst. The end result of this is that, as a guarantee, they are going to be terrible.

The result of this is that Wikipedia is terrible about anything that matters. The more important a topic is, the worse Wikipedia is. Yay! Wikipedia succeeds in being neutral, or at least pretends to be neutral, though a lot of that is because there are so many editors that it is nearly impossible to work out who wrote what. It's not like each sentence has an attribution to it in terms of its author. Only experts on the topic can tell how accurately an article is written, and experts are banned from writing about any topics that they are expert at.

But Wikipedia does get some things right = articles that don't matter. So entertainment articles are usually pretty good. Anything about anything on TV, in movies, music, books, and computer games are generally pretty good, or at least so long as there is nothing controversial in them. Articles about Spongebob Squarepants, for example, can be exceptionally useful. Sadly, Wikipedia doesn't like that their unimportant articles are their best.

Quite possibly the single worst type of articles are about politics.

The article about former US President George W Bush is often quoted as being the most inaccurate article in the whole of Wikipedia, and this is not because it is barely edited - it doubles as the most edited article on Wikipedia, with some 500,000 total edits. People just can't get it right. And there is a reason for this too - because while he was president George W Bush told some of the biggest lies, including false claims that Saddam Hussein was harbouring weapons of mass destruction, or that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11, or that Afghanistan were harbouring Al Qaeda. The worst part is that many of Bush's lies were compounded from his father George H Bush's lies, that included the false claim that Iraq had invaded Kuwait, or that Kuwait was a democracy, or that Iraq wasn't, and so on and so forth, all of which we were told we had to accept as true because we were traitors if we didn't.

Related to the lies in the George W Bush articles are lies about 9/11, the two US invasions of Iraq, the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait, and the US invasion of Afghanistan. Anything that touches George W Bush is lied about on Wikipedia.

Next-worst is the article about Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, the Wikipedia article has nothing to do with what actually happened. The difference between this and the Bush article is that it actually existed in a reasonably-accurate fashion until he became president, and they kept at least some of his pre-presidential article in place. It was almost like he could be spoken about fairly accurately while he was not a politician, but as soon as he became a politician they were committed to the lie. I kept checking every time that a new piece of information came out related to him, whether it was about the Durham Report or the revelations about Hunter Biden, but Wikipedia either completely ignored them, or, if they did mention them, it was only to pretend that they didn't matter.

It's not like other politicians are spoken about honestly. Joe Biden's page is horrific too, as is Hillary Clinton's. Indeed, every major American politician has an inaccurate article about them.

In terms of accuracy, the least important they are determines how accurate their articles are, and you could plot a chart to work it out. Minor politicians who don't really matter might be lucky enough to get wholly-accurate articles written about them - at least until someone decides that they need to be written about in a certain way. Then it stops just being biased (which is okay) and becomes absolute lies.

Here in Australia, the least-accurate article on Wikipedia is not about an individual politician, but a political decision = the creation of the Goods and Services Tax, or GST. Wikipedia claims that it was popular, but it was actually widely hated. Nobody in Australia has ever claimed it to be popular, but Wikipedia go on about it as if it is fact. It's like they have no concept of what is really going on.

Related inaccurate articles are about the Port Arthur massacre, which led to widespread gun control, and the Children Overboard scandal, which led to some immigration law reforms. Wikipedia refers to the latter as the MV Tampa incident, as if to try to bury it by not referring to it by its normal name.

Internationally, the worst article is about the Lockerbie Bombing, which Wikipedia refers to as Pan Am Flight 103, which, like with the Children Overboard scandal, is not how most people refer to it.

They love to refer to topics by completely the wrong names, so as to bury them.

So if you were researching anything at all, you should never use Wikipedia. It is like an encyclopaedia, an amalgam of ideas, but it is much worse than the likes of World Book or Britannica, not because it is online, but because of NPOV and NOR, and an inability to tell who wrote what.

Even ancient historical facts are lied about on Wikipedia, such as the articles about the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis, which Wikipedia gets completely wrong in spite of being thousands of years old.

[ericbarbour]

The article about former US President George W Bush is often quoted as being the most inaccurate article in the whole of Wikipedia, and this is not because it is barely edited - it doubles as the most edited article on Wikipedia, with some 500,000 total edits. People just can't get it right. And there is a reason for this too - because while he was president George W Bush told some of the biggest lies, including false claims that Saddam Hussein was harbouring weapons of mass destruction, or that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11, or that Afghanistan were harbouring Al Qaeda. The worst part is that many of Bush's lies were compounded from his father George H Bush's lies, that included the false claim that Iraq had invaded Kuwait, or that Kuwait was a democracy, or that Iraq wasn't, and so on and so forth, all of which we were told we had to accept as true because we were traitors if we didn't.

Accurate. The run-up to the Iraq invasion was one of the most stupid, dishonest things the White House ever did. WP will keep lecturing us forever (or until it crashes for the last time) but it doesn't matter, Bush got away with it. Americans are notorious suckers for phony patriotic displays and arcane conspiracy theories.

Next-worst is the article about Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, the Wikipedia article has nothing to do with what actually happened. The difference between this and the Bush article is that it actually existed in a reasonably-accurate fashion until he became president, and they kept at least some of his pre-presidential article in place. It was almost like he could be spoken about fairly accurately while he was not a politician, but as soon as he became a politician they were committed to the lie. I kept checking every time that a new piece of information came out related to him, whether it was about the Durham Report or the revelations about Hunter Biden, but Wikipedia either completely ignored them, or, if they did mention them, it was only to pretend that they didn't matter.

Also correct. They cherry-pick the worst material and boost it. Before 2015 Trump was just an annoying egotistical real-estate developer with a tendency to sue people. During the 2016 campaign he became SATAN.

It's not like other politicians are spoken about honestly. Joe Biden's page is horrific too, as is Hillary Clinton's. Indeed, every major American politician has an inaccurate article about them.

Because the most successful WP insiders are fake anti-authoritarians. They treat their "encyclo-thing" as a social media toy. Using it as desired to shit on people they dislike--including anyone in power.

They love Bernie Sanders. But I guarantee, if Sanders suddenly had a good chance of becoming president or vice president, they would turn on him. They are "pseudo-leftist neoliberals" or what have you. No real political goals, just a hatred of anyone with political power--other than themselves.

Here in Australia, the least-accurate article on Wikipedia is not about an individual politician, but a political decision = the creation of the Goods and Services Tax, or GST. Wikipedia claims that it was popular, but it was actually widely hated. Nobody in Australia has ever claimed it to be popular, but Wikipedia go on about it as if it is fact. It's like they have no concept of what is really going on.

You should link to something you're complaining about....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goods_and ... nsequences
So, which parts of this are inaccurate?

Related inaccurate articles are about the Port Arthur massacre, which led to widespread gun control, and the Children Overboard scandal, which led to some immigration law reforms. Wikipedia refers to the latter as the MV Tampa incident, as if to try to bury it by not referring to it by its normal name.

Figured you'd bring that up.

Internationally, the worst article is about the Lockerbie Bombing, which Wikipedia refers to as Pan Am Flight 103, which, like with the Children Overboard scandal, is not how most people refer to it.

And we know exactly who to "thank" for that.

Screenshot 2023-07-08 at 13-15-28 Pan Am Flight 103 - Page History - XTools.png (89.09 KiB) Viewed 1486 times

[Boink Boink]

Obviously it is technically possible to tell who wrote what, but it hardly helps.

Not sure why you have a problem with encyclopedias per se, their whole entire point is to summarise information with neutrality and comprehensivity. They are for people who know nothing about a topic and want to learn from what is already known. They are written by experts who both know the field AND know how to write for an encyclopedia (alternatively as the writer/editor model, working in collaboration).

That is why Wikipedia is shit, because half the dickheads there don't know this is what an encyclopedia is, the other half do but are ignoring it for bad reasons. To an expert researcher/writer/editor, watching Wikipedia be written is like watching monkeys trying to use kitchen applicances.

Obviously if you are trying to advance a body of knowledge (original research) or otherwise know a topic to the level that an encyclopedia writer would (expert knowledge), then you go for the primary and secondary sources and account for biases.

The only good thing Wikipedia does, is identify its sources. This is invariably how a reader can tell an article is shit (but sadly only if they're willing to put the time in to fully research a topic) because they invariably prove Wikipedia is terrible at selecting the best sources for an encyclopedia (secondary, independent) and finding the neutrality of their whole. Christ, there's still huge parts of hugely important articles that don't even identify their source yet. Beyond shit.

George W. Bush looks to be impeccably sourced, no doubt a result of intense editorial scrutiny. But because they're Wikipedians not skilled people, it took me five seconds to find a sentence in the article that states "According to The Atlantic...." and is sourced to the Atlantic. This is a controversial claim where bias would be a facror, but the claim stands in isolation, isn't balanced by other viewpoints, and without a seondary source, gives nobody any confidence this was an important moment in history.

[wexter]

Obviously it is technically possible to tell who wrote what, but it hardly helps.

To Wikipedia; "Who wrote what" is actually more important than content or what is said accurate or most likely not
--(don't expect much from a hyper-sensitive and defensive social- network "nee" cult of autistic and mentally ill folks).

Beyond public relation claims-lies, Accuracy is not part of the equation.

Regardless of accuracy - more than a paragraph is "Tl-DR" : https://www.instagram.com/tldr.wikipedia/



Tldr.wikipedia is satire but ironically it could be a better and more relevant encyclopedic product. It has a picture and a few words and that is all people want to see as a product. The limited scope of each simplified snippet improves accuracy; which is something real-paper encyclopedias understood and Britannica still understands.

As you know I am totally convinced Wikipedia is done (past tense, toast, kaput, dead-platform-squawking) because of changes in technology, attention spans, and culture. No reason exists to lambaste the folks participating on Wikipedia, let them spin and age out....

[zordrac]

Here in Australia, the least-accurate article on Wikipedia is not about an individual politician, but a political decision = the creation of the Goods and Services Tax, or GST. Wikipedia claims that it was popular, but it was actually widely hated. Nobody in Australia has ever claimed it to be popular, but Wikipedia go on about it as if it is fact. It's like they have no concept of what is really going on.

You should link to something you're complaining about....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goods_and ... nsequences
So, which parts of this are inaccurate?

The bits where they claim that anyone in Australia ever wanted the GST. That article is such a mess now, but it used to be a lot simpler. Essentially, they claim that the Liberal party won the election because of the GST. Quite the opposite, they won in spite of the GST. The introduction of the GST hurt the Liberal party to no end, as Australians still hate that there is a GST. Nobody at all in the entire country likes that we have a GST now.

Internationally, the worst article is about the Lockerbie Bombing, which Wikipedia refers to as Pan Am Flight 103, which, like with the Children Overboard scandal, is not how most people refer to it.

And we know exactly who to "thank" for that.
Screenshot 2023-07-08 at 13-15-28 Pan Am Flight 103 - Page History - XTools.png

SlimVirgin is primarily responsible for the dishonest Lockerbie Bombing article.

Wikipedia have a habit of giving the wrong title for articles that they write about inaccurately. There are so many examples of this. When Googling something doesn't come up with the Wikipedia article about it, you know that they are lying pretty hard. It's called Pan Am Flight 103 on Wikipedia instead of the Lockerbie Bombing because they want to lie like crazy about it.

[Dr Mario]

I don't think there is proper way of using Wikipedia/fandom other than to never use it and Google makes it very hard to avoid.

But Wikipedia does get some things right = articles that don't matter. So entertainment articles are usually pretty good. Anything about anything on TV, in movies, music, books, and computer games are generally pretty good, or at least so long as there is nothing controversial in them. Articles about Spongebob Squarepants, for example, can be exceptionally useful. Sadly, Wikipedia doesn't like that their unimportant articles are their best.

I'm actually not convinced that this the case at all. Ericbarbour has constantly pointed out that there is next to no information regarding reality TV series on there. In Another thread on this forum. While I must admit I don't care for Reality TV show/series the information about them should be on a supposed all knowing WIKIA. Then there is popular balance the more popular its like Spongebob Squarepants or the Simpsons then there high changes that you will find very detailed descriptions on invidual episodes characters and loads of "in universe" information that don't sevrve any usel purpose at all. The less popular its or more
obscure TV show or film series is don't expect to find much if anything usefull on it on WIKI. You wont find any description of individual episodes or films and no "in-universe" information. At best you could call yourself lucky if you find complete list of episodes films and release dates and thats not always for gone conclusion. If any of those have individual articles on them they are stubs at best and not useful at all. So only thing wikipedia/Fandom gets "right" are articles about high popular fandoms surrounding films, TV, Video Games, Sports, etc (no wonder Jimbo/Jimmy Wales also founded a wiki based websites called fandoms). Other than that Wikipedia and Wikies its pretty useless on the entertainment front as well.