|  aRTy-nz | Feb 3, 2007 3:42pm | Wikipedia is generally good when I want to look something up.
However (you knew that was coming didn't you), I have found that wikipedia is very difficult to work with in some areas of little known knowledge. Specifically I have made a life long study of cycles and I am considered an expert by many people. Yet in wikipedia I find that the articles that I write are quite likely to be put up for deletion by ignorant people simply because they were not taught about that in school. This obstructionism runs as far as telling defamatory lies and miscounting votes. I am complaining as best as I know how. I have made a blog entry in my Wobbly Universe blog at ray.tomes.biz/b2/index.php/a/2007/02/02/ [ray.tomes.biz/b2/index.php/a/2007/02/02/]
is_wikipedia_broke_anti_cycles_behaviour where I will continue to post progress relating to this matter.
... dam it! ... SU is broke too! :-) ... it will not display the link correctly but it does seem to get there ...
Suggestions welcome here or in my blog. |
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Sponsor |  Naruwan | Apr 23, 2007 4:51am | Recently, ex-Wikipedian co-founder Larry Sanger declared Wikipedia "broken beyond repair". I do think that's a bit of an exaggeration and considering he recently launched his own Wikipedia-type project (Citizendium), you have to take that with a pinch of salt.
But you do get the impression that Wikipedia is having serious problems that aren't going to go away without making fundamental changes. My own feeling is that Jimbo can't let these problems fester for much longer. He has to call some kind of pow-wow and thrash this thing out. It's going to be ugly but it needs to be done and the sooner the better. |
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| | VforVIB | Apr 23, 2007 8:13am | Well wikipedia is a awesome source of info for general topics, of if you want the basics of any topic, but if you want more you need to search more.
And wikipedia is nor a reliable source of info for any sensetive topic, like history, or certain topics where people can use it for their own perpose(like SEO & getting Backlinks) |
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Sponsor | | rumisong | Apr 23, 2007 8:33am | I dont know what a "reliable source of information" is ... I mean, I really dont know - Im not soliciting opinions here, they will not tell me any better ... Im meaning a visceral - deep down - wholly felt - "I Dont Know" - about this notion of "reliable source" ... Im not being dismissive - and Im not trying to be de-constructionist (although that may be the effect) ... Im saying, there is a place that one can find in oneself, where there is NO matter of it - one way or the other ... where one realizes, we all just make up what we want to hear anyway- and that this is a fact that is going on Right Now - and continues to go on 864,000 times a day ... THAT kind of factualness to it ...
so Im not concerned for Wikipedia - whether it makes a success in future or not ... I use it all the time - and I just came from there (was just looking up the Picts, in fact ...) and I dont believe or disbelieve anything I read ... its all just "information" - and nothing more .... there really is no "good" or "bad" information - theres only people with agendas ... everyone, has an agenda - and upon realizing that, there is no "good" or "bad" agenda
(the only thing that gets a rise from me still, is when someone refuses to see their own agenda ... but then, that would only be my own agenda that rises, thinking that they Should be willing to see that everyone has an equal agenda ... round and round this goes ...)
this means, the entire notion of "expertise" is laughable .... but of course, I must apologize to the experts in the audience ... "with all due respect" is the acceptable term ... the problem is, I really do respect everyone equally, and this implies, no one is really an expert in anything - ever ... only within academic agendas, do such things exist - but not in reality ... ask anyone ;) |
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| | aRTy-nz | Apr 23, 2007 3:42pm | Rumisong in #4, I agree with much of what you say. Everything must indeed be taken with a pinch of salt. My experience with wikipedia however is in a different category - that of censorship. There is a concerted effort to not allow alternative views to the "ruling" scientific paradigm, a behaviour which is like that of Christianity at its worst 500 years ago.
From my personal experience in relation to cycles, where articles that are quite solidly based in fact are deleted without due process and when I objected and followed process I was blocked from wikipedia by someone who was not vaguely acquainted with the facts.
Moving to a less personal experience I would say look at the astrology article. First a statement of my view on astrology - it is 99% total bunk - so I am in 99% agreement with most scientists. However the article is full (or was last time I looked) of statements about how it is wrong. It would be sufficient to start with a statement that "most scientists think that astrology is a load of old bunk" and then leave it to the astrologers to express their bunk in their own way. It would equally well be true to then add "most scientists have never ever looked at the facts and base their opinions on blind prejudice". There are actually a small number of valid scientific checks of sort of astrological stuff (e.g. Gauquelin) and scientists have tried to bury these.
The sad fact is that whereas as encyclopaedia is supposed to be a compendium of knowledge, the majority of humans work out of a basis of blind prejudice born of their upbringing. Someone once said that some scientists occasionally trip over the truth, but most get up and carry on as if nothing had happened. |
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Sponsor | | rumisong | Apr 23, 2007 4:40pm | aRTy:
"Everything must indeed be taken with a pinch of salt. My experience with wikipedia however is in a different category - that of censorship."
I dont mean to be contrarian here - but rather to truly ask, why not take even that (censorship) with the grain of salt? ... really - why not ... what will it lead you to if you do? ... a great question was asked of me recently - "who would you be, if you were physically incapable of having a negative thought about ____blank___ ?" (censorship, in our case) ... what a great question that is ... it doesnt change the fact that Ive had an insight into 'xyz' ... or that I care about my fellow man ... or that those that heard me, heard me, and those who couldnt hear me- couldnt ... none of that changes - only my own insistence that they "ought" to have heard me goes away ... and I still see what I see, and the sun still shines in the morning ...
what I risk losing is my place in society ... my ranking as an expert - as educated - as worth listening to - etc, right? ... but, do I actually "KNOW" without a doubt, that this would be a good thing for others to see me this way? ... do I actually KNOW that its important to make this contribution, in this particular way? ...
No, the answer is no - I dont know ... but, when I look at the energy I expend trying to get others to see me and "my work" in the way that I want them to, a certain absurdity arises ... namely- in the process, Ive lost the "honesty" with which I originally saw 'truth' ... I lost the insight - and their insistence and bullheadedness simply became my bullheadedness ... I was now them, and no longer in possession of the wisdom that brought me to write my thoughts down in the first place ...
if I become as them ... then Ive lost it ... did I ever have it? ... do you see? ... wisdom will not let you possess it ... you must create it new every time ... so if it does not come across to others in what youve written - then either it wasnt true, or you were trying to possess it ... of course it will get lost ... when it is true, and you stop trying to possess it ... then it will come across to somebody ...
thats all that can EVER be important ... THAT is the 'not carrying on as if nothing had happened' ... because it is not doing what the rest are doing ... trying to possess knowledge ... that is everyones 'blind prejudice born of (of a million years of) upbringing' - thinking that wisdom can be possessed ... no - it must be made new in every moment |
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Sponsor | | Naruwan | Apr 23, 2007 5:28pm | 4. What you're describing then is a kind of epistemic relativism in which all opinions or pieces of information on a given subject are equally valid. There's no right or wrong answer, "no 'good' or 'bad' agenda" (your words), just a difference in viewpoint. OK, so apples are blue and Elvis is living in a bunker on the moon. But that's just my opinion.
"the entire notion of "expertise" is laughable"
Don't forget many of the entries at Wikipedia were actually written by experts. And where do the masses get their information from when writing or editing entries? Mostly it's from published books and journals or online information written by experts, and that includes non-academic experts. So, to me, this vehement anti-expert sentiment at Wikipedia is laughable because the vast majority of entries are largely based on information written by experts. |
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Sponsor | | rumisong | Apr 23, 2007 5:54pm | ok, so we have here a case in point:
within a matter of seconds, a dozen or more "arguments" come flooding into the mind as to how or why someone may have vastly missed the point ... but to place any of them down in the form of counter-argument, or to start debating some point or other with the expectation that the "truth" will come out in the wash - That action itself, is what will miss the point ... the point is, wisdom/ insight/ cannot be argued in that it cannot be pigeonholed - it cannot be named ... it cannot be possessed ... so to argue with one who insists on argument, is itself losing the insight it had in the first place ...
5:"a concerted effort to not allow alternative views to the "ruling" scientific paradigm" ...
the ruling paradigm I keep seeing put up in front of me is one of the insistence on logic being a superior means of understanding the nature of relationship ... the resultant products of which never look like insights though ... only ever logical arguments, and academic justifications ...
I find the insight is always lost, when I try to bring it to a debate ... the debate (logic) will always win with its insistence on its own expectations of what allows for alternative veiws ... I get to see the self enclosed nature of logic, but those certain of their use of logic, are ever running around on their hamster cage, and cannot seem to see "outside of the box" |
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| | aRTy-nz | Apr 25, 2007 5:20am | | Rumi, your pontification is an interesting subject. However it is not the subject raised here. there is a problem when knowledge (whether it bes "certain" or not) from the past is destroyed because some young twit didn't learn about it in school. There is no harm in wikipedia carrying old or ancient knowledge (it can be labeled as such). To insist on destroying it is an act of vandalism and is not excusable because there is a question about the whole basis of knowledge. |
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