• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Feng Shui and Wikipedia

Mojo said:
That depends on the quality of the references and whether they actually support what the article says.
Click to expand...

As a general rule anthing with over say 10 references is the result of two or more sides dissagreeing with the result that people tend to go over each others references with a fine tooth comb looking for any excuse to reject them.
 
geni said:
As a general rule anthing with over say 10 references is the result of two or more sides dissagreeing with the result that people tend to go over each others references with a fine tooth comb looking for any excuse to reject them.
Click to expand...


Is that in one of the reliable disclaimers? ;)
 
geni said:
Because it would mean that wikipedia was accepting responcibilty for something in some way shape or form.
Click to expand...

You know, one might argue that this is part of the problem. Part of the reason that USENET and the Web went to hell as quickly as they did is because no one was accepting responsibility for it, while the OED and Brittanica are still accepted as reliable sources after a century....
 
John de Combe said:
One of the worst examples of BS I've found on Wikipedia is:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Stokes
Click to expand...

Zero references, one external link to a very obviously woo "spiritualist union" website, three books in the Bibliography, two of which Doris Stokes wrote and the other a "tribute". It's pretty easy to dismiss this article out of hand and I have never heard of Doris Stokes.

I also see that it's been flagged as disputed since I looked at it the first time 30 minutes ago.
 
tsg said:
I also see that it's been flagged as disputed since I looked at it the first time 30 minutes ago.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know how many entries in Wikipedia that has been flagged as disputed? Out of how many in all?

It seems to me a group of people could destroy Wikipedia this way, simply by disputing everything.
 
CFLarsen said:
Does anyone know how many entries in Wikipedia that has been flagged as disputed? Out of how many in all?
Click to expand...

The best I can figure, out of 973,456 articles, over 2000 articles have been tagged as NPOV (neutral point of view) Dispute, and 197 as Accuracy Dispute. It isn't clear if a TotallyDisputed article counts in either or both lists.

It seems to me a group of people could destroy Wikipedia this way, simply by disputing everything.
Click to expand...

Dispute tags can be removed just as easily as they are added. Unless you list some specific reasons on the talk page why the accuracy or neutrality of the article is in dispute, someone will just remove the tag.
 
I see someone added a "unverified" tag to the Feng Shui entry and began editing it with an eye toward accuracy. I added a number of additional edits to one section, yet a great deal of work still needs to be done to fix this scam job.
 
CFLarsen said:
It seems to me a group of people could destroy Wikipedia this way, simply by disputing everything.
Click to expand...

People have tried. I can revert your edits at a rate of greater than once per second. How fast can you edit?
 
tsg said:
The best I can figure, out of 973,456 articles, over 2000 articles have been tagged as NPOV (neutral point of view) Dispute, and 197 as Accuracy Dispute. It isn't clear if a TotallyDisputed article counts in either or both lists.
Click to expand...

TotallyDisputed should be both.

Dispute tags can be removed just as easily as they are added. Unless you list some specific reasons on the talk page why the accuracy or neutrality of the article is in dispute, someone will just remove the tag.
Click to expand...

Of course some people then chose to edit war over wether an article is dissputed.
 
tsg said:
Is there something inaccurate in the article that you have a problem with?
Click to expand...

No idea. It just has the second highest number of references of any article I know of.
 
drkitten said:
You know, one might argue that this is part of the problem. Part of the reason that USENET and the Web went to hell as quickly as they did is because no one was accepting responsibility for it, while the OED and Brittanica are still accepted as reliable sources after a century....
Click to expand...

Brittanica didn't do much better than wikipedia in the nature study (and isn't selling too well although encarta probably has a lot to do with that). EB 1911 is public domain. It has it's fans but most of them would admit it has point of view problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom