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Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2020 3:26 am
by ericbarbour
Your list of many-red-links for the month:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... California

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 8:41 am
by ericbarbour
HAVE ANOTHER!! A dead-typical long, long list of red links for obscure plants. They still have this kind of thing for genus lists of bacteria, insects, protozoa, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draba

Which reminds me: there is an ugly political battle over a deeply obscure flower only found in a tiny section of the Rhyolite Ridge in Esmeralda County, Nevada. And there is nothing about this on Wikipedia.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... ent-100595
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/spe ... kwheat.pdf

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 6:55 pm
by Abd
This brings me to what was once my favorite topic, how Wikiversity could complement Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, for notable topics. Wikiversity was for educational materials and "learning by doing," and what does one do when studying in a real university? Well, write papers! Participate in seminars and discuss topics!. We did it to some degree on WV, created learning resources, where compiling the information was learning (Wikipedians thought of Wikiversity as "articles," and then were upset if the articles weren't "neutral," but a university library is full of non-neutral materials. The overall structure is neutral, and on WV this would be represented by top-level pages (Wikiversity allows subpages in mainspace!) being rigorously neutral with full or very high consensus -- which is actually easy to do if divergent points of view can be expressed on subpages.

It worked, so, naturally and eventually, the Wikipedians killed it.

In any case, no problem at all creating WV placeholder pages for every species, and sorting and categorizing that information, and collecting sources, no matter how obscure. They would not have to be "reliable source," but site neutrality requires that sources not be misrepresented. They are what they are. If it's an amateur botanist, the problem is? Only if it is presented with color of authority would that be a problem. And students would learn.

I learned very much of what I know about cold fusion by collecting sources -- including highly critical ones. In fact, especially critical sources, ones that are substantial are not easy to find! (and they are all old, that's another finding one only comes to when reading a lot in a field.) But this also worked with many other topics, even ones where there was even heavier controversy.

With this approach, people with strong differences could still collaborate to create complete resources.

Yeah, they killed it. Wikipedians do not want genuine consensus to form. Too often, they are terrified of it.

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2020 9:54 am
by ericbarbour
Ran across this fine example of Wikipedia "failing to achieve consensus" today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GardaWorld

It is a poorly written article, AND it's the focus of some "interesting" editing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =934118396

Which was reverted weeks later, by someone who sure looks like a GardaWorld employee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... SMarkowicz

For information NOT allowed to exist on Wikipedia, you might consult this. Corporations love GardaWorld because they're usually the cheapest bidder for cash-pickup contracts.

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/ ... ed-trucks/

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2020 4:06 pm
by Abd
Yeah. The Tampa Times, reliable source, horrifying story. If this were in a blog about some fringe scientist or alternative medical practice, the article would be citing it and editors who try to neutralize it would be threatened and blocked. But this isn't mentioned on Wikipedia.

I wondered about the shortage of reliable source. Most sources are not reliable. Then there was a substantial removal of content by SMarkowitz, contributions.

This shows a sign of sophistication: extensive and trivial changes (adding spaces) to the stuff at the top of the article, to suppress notice by Recent Changes Patrollers, who would normally choke on a substantial removal of content with no explanation. That content was sourced, possibly reliably. It was also clumsily added, to be sure.

Nobody is home, nobody is responsible. Wiki. But, hey, it's quick and it's easy, right?

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 3:05 am
by ericbarbour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger

"This article needs to be updated" NO SHIT, NERDS. It goes on and on (and on!) about the "battery-pack swapping program", which was abandoned back in 2015. The list of charging stations is pathetic.

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 8:43 pm
by ericbarbour
It's a bit "odd", how United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz is treated by Wikipedia. They always mishandle screechy news-media messes involving big stupid corporations and this is a great example.

On 10 April 2017, Oscar's article looked like this. Bland and neutral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =774802913

Then the David Dao business struck. Years of hysterical editwarring resulted. Today the Munoz bio talks more about the Dao incident and the way Munoz and the company mishandled it, than about his life or career. (Three days later it was even worse.)

This freak was a major reason for Munoz' life being defined by ten minutes of idiocy in Chicago - a town where violent idiocy is loved deeply. But Wikipedians seem to love their own special brand of local idiocy even moar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... nbiologist

And don't forget this shrieky pile of feces!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... /David_Dao

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:34 pm
by ericbarbour
YOU STUPID ASSHOLES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Girl_in_Changi

YOU STUPID ASSHOLES

It has existed since 2007, references abound, and YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO FIX IT.

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:51 pm
by badmachine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Greece

Virtually useless article about the government of Greece, it says nothing about the EU and a large part of the article is about the Greek flag.

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:33 pm
by Strelnikov
badmachine wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:51 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Greece

Virtually useless article about the government of Greece, it says nothing about the EU and a large part of the article is about the Greek flag.
I looked for a "Greece in the EU" article thinking some gormless idiot was going to write a complementary stub, but all they have is a stupid "Greek Withdrawal from the European Union" article instead. And they don't have the guts to mention Yanis Veroufakis' book Adults in the Room* (2017), which they don't have an article for anyway....all they have is an article for the 2019 movie Costa-Gavras made of the book! This is why Wikipedia needs expert input and professional copyeditors, but Hillbilly Jim is too fuckin' Southern and cheap for that, oh no....."free labor is the best labor", spoken like a true plantation owner.
____________________

* The Lobster magazine review of it: https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free ... e-room.pdf
Doug Henwood interviewing Veroufakis on the book in 2017: http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArch ... _10_12.mp3
And then some more: http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArch ... _12_21.mp3

My theme for Wikipedia, "Still" by the Geto Boys: