quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: HAH!!!
Insightful commentary indeed.
Seriously, though, I'm hard pressed to figure out exactly what you were trying to say here.
In regards to Mr. Card's point, though, I have to prettty much agree with him. Any workable organization must be somewhere in the middle. Except for anarchists and the most extreme Libertarians (which, I'd imagine, are more or less one and the same), I imagine that pretty much everyone would agree with him to some extent. Even relatively decentralized sites like Wikipedia still have a hierarchy in place to deal with moderation, conflict resolution, and policymaking.
posted
My point was it's funny. I laughed out loud. Must everything I say be analyzed for hidden meanings and logical inconsistencies?
Posts: 1286 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I just want to point out -- and I'm by no means defending Wikipedia's policy here, because I think it's boneheaded -- that Card's attempt to change his own entry on Wikipedia was originally shut down because Wikipedia has rules against letting people update their own entries. In fact, it wasn't wild, uncontrolled mobs of people biased against him that prevented him from initially clearing up those errors of fact; it was the coagulated, often nonsensical bureaucracy of Wikipedia that did so.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: My point was it's funny. I laughed out loud. Must everything I say be analyzed for hidden meanings and logical inconsistencies?
I was just wondering why you made a post on it. I thought that there might be more to it.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
After a quick look at the current wikipedia page, it doesn't seem particularly negative or bad, although I don't know enough about Mr. Card to comment on the factual accuracy of most of the information.
In general, though, I am a big fan of wikipedia. While it certainly has some flaws (ok, a lot of flaws), it is really great for some applications. It is usually the first place I turn to if I want to get a quick overview of a topic I am unfamiliar with (especially if the topic is relatively uncontroversial and unlikely to be maliciously vandalized). It is by no means perfect, and a good dose of scepticism is necessary while looking at it, but this is true of most any source you look at. In general, though, I have found that mature articles on the site tend to be fairly good.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote: Tom, how would they know? Can't you just change entries anonymously?
You can. But a) he didn't; and b) the inaccuracy of his Wikipedia entry was first brought to his attention on this forum, and he announced his intention to fix his entry on this forum, and a Wikipedia editor warned him in that same thread that his attempts to do so would be prevented if they "caught" him.
Again, not necessarily the brightest of policies. I understand why they require it, but it creates situations like this, in which the author feels like his attempt to clean up some really basic misinformation was prevented due to ill-will rather than petty bureaucracy. Which is kind of ironic, given that his mention of Wikipedia is intended to actually support his endorsement of centralized bureaucracy.
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I know a few, too. Again, you can do it if you don't get caught.
Seriously, it's a dumb policy but isn't too hard to work around. The issue is that most WikiNazis require second-party citations for information changes, but don't require that level of proof for initial assertions; those assertions are usually just flagged as "unconfirmed" and left to stand, and someone's attempts to correct them can be difficult.
"But he lives next door! I KNOW how old he is," you might reasonably complain. "He's told me himself!"
But if you post a correction to someone's Wikipedia entry that fixes his birthday, people will ask you to link to a birth certificate or other form of online source, as ridiculous as that sounds. I know individuals who've gotten around that restriction by posting a page on their own website that includes their birthday, and then having a friend post a "correction" that references that page as the source.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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