Isn't it interesting how wikipedia is now a respected source?

[TigerClaw]

One of the issues with Wikipedia is that only 3rd parties can only write or edit those articles.

If there was an article written about a person, Only the people writing it are allowed to do it and edit it. The person who the article is about isn't allowed to edit the article or add any corrections.

So if your a famous person, Your not allowed to create the Wikipedia yourself, Someone else has to write about you.

Also Wikipedia is very finicky about what's posted, They have to check if the person who the article is about is notable.

If your somebody they don't deem as notable, The Wikipedia entry gets marked for deletion.

[oldmanwinters]

I don't think Wiki is a wholly different beast than a traditional encyclopedia, nor has it earned any particular respect in its accuracy. Pretty much any level of academia beyond grade-school education would discourage or deduct points from any research project which relied upon an encyclopedia (even the best ones) as a crucial source. The purpose of a good encyclopedia would be to give a basic overview of a topic and to encourage serious students to pursue more robust sources germane to in-depth study of a subject.

Good Wiki pages do the same thing, citing the proper sources when applicable, and pointing people to superior resources to continue the study of a topic.

[TigerClaw]

I usually rely on Wikipedia when it comes to movies, It has all sorts of information about the movies which includes the whole plot. So if you wanted to know the entire plot of the movie, It has everything that happened in them.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by sdp

just boomers didn't want to think it was "that easy" to get information. .

I agree that it's mostly angry boomers who didn't grow up with the internet and they had to go to libraries and take out encyclopedia's and brave the snowstorm with their bare feet in 1962 and had to stand on line for 5 hours to buy a loaf of bread.

I always noticed when I was a teen most of my teachers seemed to hate the internet. Again this was late 90's and early 2000's, and most of them were already 40-50+ so that means they grew up in the 60's or whatever. Like even back then if you said you, "use google" they would look at you oddly wondering what the hell that was.

It's funny because most modern teachers are now our generation, the 30 year olds who grew up with this stuff, so the young kids of today aren't given as hard a time as we were. I also remember my teachers hated electronic devices of any kind, when back then we all had the old flip-top cell phones that didn't even have internet.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

I usually rely on Wikipedia when it comes to movies, It has all sorts of information about the movies which includes the whole plot. So if you wanted to know the entire plot of the movie, It has everything that happened in them.

Exactly. Wikipedia is an awesome resource for quick info and "bring me up to speed" reading. But it's crowd sourced. The same kid that scared small animals away as a kid and claimed "it's good for them!" can edit Wikipedia. And those people exist in adulthood.

Wikipedia has it's place - hell I've donated to them before on their promps for it now and again. But it's not empirical.

[Andrew NDB]

Same as IMDB, which is weirdly held in higher esteem regularly.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I agree that it's mostly angry boomers who didn't grow up with the internet and they had to go to libraries and take out encyclopedia's and brave the snowstorm with their bare feet in 1962 and had to stand on line for 5 hours to buy a loaf of bread.

I always noticed when I was a teen most of my teachers seemed to hate the internet. Again this was late 90's and early 2000's, and most of them were already 40-50+ so that means they grew up in the 60's or whatever. Like even back then if you said you, "use google" they would look at you oddly wondering what the hell that was.

It's funny because most modern teachers are now our generation, the 30 year olds who grew up with this stuff, so the young kids of today aren't given as hard a time as we were. I also remember my teachers hated electronic devices of any kind, when back then we all had the old flip-top cell phones that didn't even have internet.

Always been that way with a progressive line of things though. Use the internet/computer/phone a lot and the older generation thinks it's too much. (Though a lot of actual Boomers are getting a real phone habit of their own.) In their day it was watching tv that was frowned on and now that's normalized. Their parents... criticized for wasting too much time listening to the radio. Go back further and it was books...a time waster that is now quite respectable!

edit: Only upside is that with her smartphone addiction and scrolling FB and messaging people for long periods most days my Boomer mom can't really say much for my own amount of internet use anymore.

who didn't grow up with the internet and they had to go to libraries...in 1962

What are you talking about, we still had to do that in 1992. lol

Had a middle school geography(?) teacher who came up with a class assignment for kids in pairs to try cooking a dish from another country assigned to us. Friend and I had Taiwan and had to go to the public library just to find a book that might have recipes. Can you imagine?? Wikipedia might have been mighty useful.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

and had to stand on line for 5 hours to buy a loaf of bread.

Well good news. Your "progressive" buddies are pushing us back on that path.

[Coola Yagami]

I remember the first example I ever ran into that proved to me that 'anyone can post and edit stuff there's was when I was for whatever reason looking up stuff on Full House and it said Kimmy liked getting double-fisted and gangbanged on the weekends.

I'm no prude mind you, but I just wasn't expecting that from a ****ing Full House article. I was just jaw-dropped and was like 'well that's not kosher' and decided I had enough internet for that day.

[Leo656]

Could be true for all we know. I wouldn't mind finding out.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I always noticed when I was a teen most of my teachers seemed to hate the internet. Again this was late 90's and early 2000's, and most of them were already 40-50+ so that means they grew up in the 60's or whatever.

Weird. Wasn't like this for me at all and I'm pretty sure I'm maybe 3 - 5 years older than you too.

In Grammar School we had an array of Apple computers in the library (like the central, open floor hub of the building surrounded by classrooms). The school was very pro-active on computers and we could take a disk and play games on 'em - I played Transylvania all the time (for those of you who remember that).

In High School the internet was just budding but all of our English teachers pushed for us to write papers on some writing program that had an automated critic built in - it would gauge your writing level and so on. And there was all sorts of talk about how the internet was eventually going to do more than that. Although I will say that people's understanding of it at the time was next to zero. People, myself included often thought that "America Online" and their discs was the internet.

Then, in College we had a class where we had to sit through this "internet presentation" from the librarian. This was probably 2000 or so and I remember distinctly that she taught us about google, told us that their goal was to "organize the information of the world" and swore up and down that if we bought google stock now we'd be rich later. That woman is probably worth a fortune in old age right now.

But yeah, my experiences were people routinely pushing the internet not admonishing it.

[sdp]

[Prowler]

Wikipedia is now a respected source? According to whom? And since when? You cannot use wiki articles as a source in a university paper. Your professor will straight up fail you.

Wikipedia and wikis in general are fine if I want to check out a list of episodes of a certain tv series or the list of albums a band has released. For stuff like that it's generally alright. But no way would I try to learn history or other important stuff from it.

Granted Wiki has tightened up its moderation. From what I've heard, it's not as easy to vandalise Wikipedia articles as it was over a decade ago. But still, it's a website that can be edited by literal nobodies. So what exactly makes it a trustful resource for academic purposes?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by sdp

https://i.imgur.com/GWUXHfi.png

Y'know the scene in "Hannibal" where he feeds Ray Liotta pieces of his own brain?

Every single time you post, that's what I want to do to you. Followed swiftly by a re-enactment of the "Hip to be Square" scene from "American Psycho".

[Prowler]

Anyway, if Wikipedia was the only place on the Internet full of misinformation, we'd be fine. But sadly, it isn't.

Social media is full of BS. And so many made up "facts" are being presented through memes nowadays. I've even seen a Churchill quote being attributed to Eminem of all people before. That's how out of hand it's getting.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by sdp

https://i.imgur.com/GWUXHfi.png

I sense this is more of SDP ageism....

[mrmaczaps]

Look up covid, 9/11 or anything else MSM wants to control the narrative of and tell me how accurate it is...

[Sumac]

Considering general level of journalism in the West and level of discourse, especially among infantile imbeciles young activists...well, yeah, Wikipedia can be considered respectable source.
LOL.

[Prowler]

I feel like Wikipedia was both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, it helped make basic information easily accessible to everyone. It's a lot of easier to go online and type something into wiki and read an article about it in under 2 minutes than finding a book containing such information and browsing through it.

On the other hand, due to a lot of inaccuracies in its articles and allowing anyone to edit them, the quality control is flawed and it ends up full of wrong information.

That isn't a wiki exclusive problem though sadly. YouTube has a lot of misinformation as well. As does the entire Internet.

Plenty of people around the world nowadays are getting wrong ideas about certain things and places thanks to online misinformation. A lot of that misinformation comes form memes as well. And no one cares about whether its factual or not because what's important is being funny.

So it's no wonder that there's a major disconnect between what people who spend a lot of time online think and those who spend most of their time in the real world think. The Internet might be a good introduction to the world beyond our backyard, but that's not the same exact thing as actually experiencing it for real. It's like comparing Call of Duty to a real life war or FIFA to a real life football match.

[TigerClaw]

The problem with Wikipedia, is they don't allow the person who the Wikipedia is about to edit the article about them if there is some discrepancies with the information.