“where I am the world expert (like on me…” Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh, Adam.
1 Like
This. It is a real problem. There are huge swaths of topics and sources which have not been digitized. As far as Wikipedia is concerned they don’t exist.
Dave
1 Like
4 Likes
Wikipedia citations don’t need to be to digital sources [WP: Offline Sources]
2 Likes
Ah ha! I stand corrected!
That’s a pretty good discussion of a very complex issue. There are two places I’m aware-of where the citation problem has not been resolved and an entry is often challenged:
-
Biographical articles on contemporary, famous figures like @ace cannot be challenged by the figures themselves. Yes, some people may be unhappy with their portrayal and attempt to change an entry but…
-
Sometimes important material is simply not online or referenced online and is only known by area experts. For example, recently a researcher was looking for materials from a laboratory at the University of Chicago and the library said they didn’t exist. I knew the materials were there (I saw them delivered to the library 20 years before) and suggested the researcher push harder. Lo and behold the materials were there but were not added to the libraries online listings. Thus, under the current guidelines, any material the researcher found would probably be challenged when trying to add a Wikipedia entry until the library actually got around to indexing all of the materials.
It’s a difficult problem…
Dave
2 Likes
A similar issue with IMDB where they have a sceptical eye on submissions and roles and credits. As a producer it’s annoying as the ultimate authority where your input is partially implemented awaiting, presumably, other validation.
1 Like
I use Wikipedia all the time and am a monthly contributor. I have edited a few articles. As an example, I read an article that included a description of an airplane accident. The article referenced several news sources, but I added a link to the official accident investigation report written by the National Transportation Safety Board. As mentioned by others; articles on math, science, and factual topics are excellent. My critical reading hat is on when I read articles on current events and political topics. Since articles are suppose to cite other sources, they have same kind of bias that I see in the general media. Even though some articles have bias, I’m able to use Wikipedia effectively. I don’t need a “fake news” nanny. Like all sources, Wikipedia should be read critically.
5 Likes
I was surprised to discover there was a Wikipedia page about my grandfather, who had been a professional footballer. He played for Aston Villa, but this was before WW1, when he got five shillings for an appearance rather than a new Ferrari each week. The page stated he died in Crewe in 1938, and yet I attended his funeral in Chiseldon, Wiltshire in 1964. I changed it to reflect that fact and it was quickly changed back. It took several tries before my edit ‘stuck’ and probably only happened because I argued in the Talk page that as his grandson I might be trusted to know.
4 Likes
Interesting! I thought data like that would have to be documented. Did the original posters not cite any reference for Crewe, say an old newspaper archive online or something?
My experience with Wikipedia matches many others’ here: I was initially highly skeptical in the early ’00s, preferring to look things up manually in my hardcopy Encyclopedia Brittanica or other sources — and, initially, I think, when they had far fewer contributors and editors and somewhat fewer guardrails in place, a lot of that skepticism was justified.
But tbh it has evolved into a source that I trust completely when the stakes are low, and trust but substantiate when the stakes are higher. In recent years, in fact, I have come to realize that in many ways Wikipedia itself is very close to the internet as I had in the early ’90s expected it would develop: thousands upon thousands of individual contributors pitching in with information about things they know about, all for the common good; a few bad actors, yes, but they tend to get dealt with fairly efficiently — and the wonderful feature of being able to compare every version of an entry with every other version can be a tremendous aid both in dealing with the comparatively small number of bad guys and in (of course) seeing how an article has evolved over time.
I’ve contributed financially annualy, and have made the occasional edit or contribution to an article — both for many years now.
Perfection? Not a bit. Utility? Unparalleled.
7 Likes
They cited a book about Crewe Alexandra FC (he played for them post war), but the book was wrong!
1 Like
I can give an example of when it doesn’t work well. There is a beach on the east coast of Australia, Stockton Beach and it includes some huts that were built there sometime in the first half of last century. A local business that offered quad bike tours decided that this was the site of filming of the first Mad Max movie, and an editor decided to add this. It is totally wrong as the movie was filmed around Melbourne which is at least 600 miles away, and people who are expert have stated that. The editor then used every trick to stop changes for several years. He eventually died and it is now fixed. One difficulty is that people used Wikipedia to make statements elsewhere, that were the used as a justification for the information in Wikipedia.
So easily done. We have had misinformation about our work put up as well. Difficult to correct and have had our corrections altered as well despite our status. Infuriating.
I did something similar for my father’s page, and it was accepted right away. And you raise the important point that sources cited can themselves be inaccurate. That can be for any number of reasons–in my case it was the misinterpretation of a street address my father gave to colleagues that got inserted into the biographical introduction they wrote for an edition of his unpublished works. I knew it was wrong not because, as you did, I was an eyewitness (it was the street he grew up on in Chicago and he never said a word about it to us), but because I was writing up a family history and tried to find a street view of the house in Apple Maps.
Which highlights something to keep in mind about Wikipedia – that it exists in a larger context. Other, more traditional sources, are often wrong in ways large and small. So the question is not whether Wikipedia gets things wrong (it does) but how that compares to other factual sources. There is, of course, a Wikipedia article about this:
2 Likes
And it’s typically prolix.
Dave
2 Likes
Wikipedia does have a process of fixing errors when there is disagreement but it takes a little effort to find it. It also requires finding enough people who are interested that will agree with your changes.