Happy 18th Birthday, Wikipedia (washingtonpost.com) 85
This week, Wikipedia celebrates its 18th birthday. If the massive crowdsourced encyclopedia project were human, then in most countries, it would just now be considered a legal adult. But in truth, the free online encyclopedia has long played the role of the Internet's good grown-up.
From a story: Wikipedia has grown enormously since its inception: It now boasts 5.7 million articles in English and pulled in 92 billion page views last year. The site has also undergone a major reputation change. If you ask Siri, Alexa or Google Home a general-knowledge question, it will likely pull the response from Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia has been cited in more than 400 judicial opinions, according to a 2010 paper in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.
Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic. And YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki announced a plan last March to pair misleading conspiracy videos with links to corresponding articles from Wikipedia. Facebook has also released a feature using Wikipedia's content to provide users more information about the publication source for articles in their feed.
Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic. And YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki announced a plan last March to pair misleading conspiracy videos with links to corresponding articles from Wikipedia. Facebook has also released a feature using Wikipedia's content to provide users more information about the publication source for articles in their feed.
Like all "open" institutions (Score:1)
It too will be subverted.
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It already has been from what I've heard. There's a lot of complaints out there about the administrative clique and this isn't anything new. It seems that hands already steer the content beyond the calls of decency. This has turned off a lot of would-be contributors but that's the intent of heavy handed censorship in the first place so it's all good. Double plus good, in fact.
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Not a nice thing to say about Wikipedia-Chan [wikimedia.org]
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Re:18 Years of Pumping Jimmy Wales' Stocks (Score:5, Interesting)
"The Internet doesn't need an encyclopaedia, it is an encyclopaedia. What it needs, is a decent index."
WP is a shit idea done shittily.
--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The Internet is nothing like an encyclopedia!
The Internet is indexed - that's the function that search engines provide. Personally, I'd say they're "decent" but not great. (I want searches with parentheses and more operators.)
Wikipedia is a great idea. With less than perfect implementation. A lot of people get a lot of value from it. If it were really that bad, we'd see stronger competitors.
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You're a fucking moron. Wales has a business called Wikia which he uses WP as advertising for.
Reminds me of an 18 year old (Score:5, Funny)
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Also thinks they know everything and keep complaining that certain people are "not notable".
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The "begging banner" is indeed quite annoying. I don't mind a relatively small banner, but theirs is often large, orange, and obnoxious*.
Are they really as desperate as the loud banner suggests, or are they just inflicted with artificial drama as some rants on the Interwebs claim? The common theory is that they want to expand their operations, and use alleged desperation to get donations for growth.
* Not intended to reference certain celebrities. The color may be red, not orange. I don't fully remember; it'
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I thought I remembered seeing somewhere (an article) that wikipedia is not in any financial dire straits at all and they're just rattling a cup under your face, but don't quote me on that.
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uBlock's element zapper takes care of the banner no problem,
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...full of incorrect information and constantly asking for money.
What he said. The site is good for hard science & factual stuff, but very poor in other areas
congratulations WP (Score:4, Funny)
Congratulations.
If I found myself in a parallel universe, the first thing to check would be the Internet and WP, if none then moving on would be the right choice - unless, of course, it's raining donuts ;-)
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Be right back, writing a wiki article on raining donuts.
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Congratulations.
If I found myself in a parallel universe, the first thing to check would be the Internet and WP, if none then moving on would be the right choice - unless, of course, it's raining donuts ;-)
In a similar situation I would check https://xkcd.com/566/ [xkcd.com]
You mean the reference web site (Score:1)
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That is not to be used in any school/college report as a reference?
It should not be used as a reference because it is an encyclopedia. References should always be to primary sources.
You can find links to the primary sources at the bottom of the Wiki page.
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Yah, that one. The one that all students use as their first point of reference anyway, because it's so much faster and clearer than looking at reliable sources. Of course, having done that, there's no substitute for getting reliable information from reliable sources -- same thing is true whether you start with Wikipedia, or the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, or Fox news or CNN or Time magazine. All are useful, all are biased, all make mistakes -- sometimes glaring ones.
Only one out of all these that I've men
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One of my favorite set of documents on most in-depth subjects is CRS reports prepared by the Library of Congress for Congress. There are always links to their original sources. Dry as hell to read, but well documented all the way. Wish everything(news especially) would be this well researched and reported on.
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Wow, you're trying to promote one of the most insanely censored, extreme EXTREME far left, circle jerk "our way or the highway" sites on the internet.
ResetERA will ban anyone who doesn't agree effectively.
A case of a site that "eats its own" whereas NeoGAF has regained a small amount of it's reputation having now started allowig people to actually discuss things again.
The most surprising thing is that Wikipedia aren't taking the ResetERA angle
ftpwwp (Score:2)
so is Drupal (Score:2)
Ha Wikipedia is the same age as Drupal.
https://dri.es/happy-eighteent... [dri.es]
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Awesome way to troll your students (Score:5, Funny)
This is probably the funniest way to troll students that I've heard in a long time.
"Yeah, can you please find an article on which you are knowledgable and for which you can cite sources, or even one which has typos or grammar problems. Go ahead and (snickers) make the appropriate edit, and then I'll check your work next week and give you a grade on what I saw (chuckles)."
Re:Awesome way to troll your students (Score:4, Funny)
Are you sure? (Score:2, Funny)
18th Birthday? Citation needed.
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<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Launch_and_early_growth</ref>
the traditional writing assignment (Score:2)
Wow, have college professors decided not to do their jobs any more? In how many jobs will an employer ask an employee to "expand or create a Wikipedia article?" Worse, the correct use of the written word is rapidly becoming a lost art. Why would a professor help trundle the written word into the graveyard?
Re:the traditional writing assignment (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding? This is a better use of everyone's time. Do you honestly think asking students to write a paper they know that you're going to skim and then bin is a better use of time?
At least here there's a chance what they write about will be read by more than one hurried, not-so-interested professor or TA. The traditional way is a ridiculous waste. We're not talking in lieu of published research here. This is instead of an essay.
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What the fuck? This is a minor league way for an undergraduate to write/publish a research paper. It's exactly what professors should be doing. Isn't Wikedia Creative Commons? Why are you anti-open sores?
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kamapuaa: I was going to mention that the local newspaper says only about 8% of local high school grad
How old in dog years? (Score:1)
Wikipedia in the last couple of years has deteriorated dramatically. Many, many articles are locked and not accessible for edits. I use if frequently, but I estimate that 99 times out of 100 the article has either obvious omissions or misleading statements. Worse, they've automated the system which erases comments on the talk pages. This leaves the articles hostage to the "official" (i.e. registered) editors. (In most cases, they are well intentioned, but how many editors have closed minds? way too many. (m
Wikipedia is still shit (Score:2, Interesting)
There was a massive opportunity for Wikipedia to actually disrupt teaching and self-learning and they COMPLETELY squandered it.
An article could be written for the layman, with advanced details/explanations for the novice/expert, a tutorial, examples to make sure you understand the concepts, videos, audio pronunciation, tips from professionals, a forum, along with verification/authenticity from professors for accuracy.
Wikipedia COULD have been basically an interactive textbook, reference, dictionary, encyclo
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Sorry about that all bold end text. Missed a bold close tag. :-/
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Re:Wikipedia is still shit (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize Wikipedia is only one part of the larger Wikimedia network? If you want to read a public domain book, WikiSource is for that. If you want a textbook, WikiText is for that. Videos, images, audio, etc, can all be hosted on the Wikimedia back end, if they are useful for one of the front end projects like Wikipedia or WikiText.
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It's flawed. Deeply flawed. But I don't have a more realistically workable idea and I still use it fairly often when I want to know a bit more on a general topic.
I tend to think of Wikipedia a bit like Churchill's paraphrased Democracy quote: it's the worst idea of its kind except for all those other forms that have been tried.
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As much as they claim to be futurists, they are still constrained by the past
The quality of the post is irrelevant. All that matters is that there is a reference to other work, which is often of poor quality
Re:Wikipedia is still shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Notability and popularity are mildly correlated, but functionally orthogonal.
What you are proposing is Wankerpedia, where all knowledge amounts to having no knowledge at all.
The Library of Babel [wikipedia.org]
The notability and citation guidelines are the only reasons the entire project hasn't degenerated into a giant emporium of fake news.
What else do you propose? Ten different primary articles on every subject under the sun, because ten different editorial camps exist for every possible subject? I don't know what that project would be, but it certainly wouldn't contain the suffix "-pedia", not even a little bit.
Let's descend one more level in the High-Rise of Five Whys: the reason why Wikipedia didn't go in your proposed direction in the first place is that kind of people who want to be all things to all people tend to sit around blowing smoke out their ass (after trying to be anything to anybody, they'd soon discover this mission is not nearly so easy as it first appears, and promptly change their asinine stripes).
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Except wikipedia's idea of "notability" and worse yet "verifiability/reliable sources" are precisely why the website HAS become a giant pile of fake news, down to claiming Jesus was a Palestinian oppressed and killed by Jewish settlers.
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Hello poor little pink unicorn. You feel hurt ?
I bet this user got one of his own little-pet-point-of-view-blabla removed from WP. And - obviously - it cannot be. It necessarily was "his self-esteem was personally attacked by very very not nice WP admins". Ha ha ! After 18 years some users still consider WP is a play-ground. What a surprise when they realise : no. What a rage when they realise there are some non-negotiable rules. Poor thing ! Childishness is hilarious when smeared over forums. Those users
Happy birthday Wikipedia (Score:1)
And I mean it. It's easy to criticize. If any of you can do better, I'll be happy to contribute. Meanwhile, this is still one of the most useful websites out there.
Wikipedia Huge and Good (Score:1)
I love it. I likely browse it more than any other website. Sort of like when I used to read no "books", but I'd browse physical encyclopedias. It is 99% perfect I'd wager.
Maybe they'll stop begging for money (Score:2)
It's a love/hate thing (Score:3)
I love wikipedia!
Some of the mathematical sections are written at a graduate level. I wish they also provided a bit of help for those of us who are mathematically literate at a lower level
Their guidelines for acceptable posts are outdated
Yes, I know that lots of cranks want to get their "original research" on wikipedia. I agree that they should be banned
But, there is a lot of really useful information that gets removed because it doesn't meet their strict guidelines
They claim to be an encyclopedia of the future, yet they continue to use rules from the past
Re:It's a love/hate thing (Score:4, Informative)
Some of the mathematical sections are written at a graduate level. I wish they also provided a bit of help for those of us who are mathematically literate at a lower level
That's what Khan Academy is for.
Now is the time we ask (Score:2, Funny)
Dear Wikipedia. Today we ask you to help us, the Wikipedia readers. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads if you link to our sites. We're sustained by shitty tech jobs paying barely more than a living wage. Only a tiny portion of the websites we view give us anything in return. If Wikipedia gave every reader $10, we could keep ourselves full of Taco Bell dollar menu foods for days to come. The price of a fucking expensive cup of coffee is all we need. If having readers is useful to you, pl
Don't trust them as much as I used to (Score:3)
Seen several articles now over the years where the narrative has been hijacked politically in one way or another, skewing the information.
If there's an article sticking to basic facts "this is how combustion works" no issue, but anything explaining how an event went down, the motivations of people doing it, how people were impacted? Yeah no thanks. PROBABLY correct but totally definitely not certain.
Finally! (Score:2)