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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Nah.
I edited a page for a new OS update that was coming out. The page was FULL of misinformation, and I cleaned it up, linked official documentation as sources, etc.
My edits were reverted by some butt hurt guy who originally wrote the page full of misinformation, 0 sources, and broken English.
I reverted back to mine.
He reverted back to his.
He spammed my profile page calling me names, and then reported me to Wiki admins. I was told not to revert changes or I would be perma-banned. I explained how the original page was broken English, misinformation, and 0 sources were cited. They straight up told me they did NOT care.
Stopped editing wiki pages, and stopped trusting them. They didn't care about factual information. They just wanted to enforce their reverting rule.
I'd love their perspective on this and the actual messages sent as this isn't very useful standalone.
Their profile was banned last time I looked about a year ago. My profile I deleted because it was permanently tainted by that asshole spamming my talk page.
I remember posting about it on Reddit back when it happened a few years ago, and everyone in the comments told me how they've had similar experiences. Really just made me weary about trusting Wikipedia. I mean sure, if they get the date of a movie wrong that's fine, but as for more serious topics, I just can't really trust it.
Even sources can be garbage. I've seen plenty of blog spam cited as sources, which means nothing.
Yep, about a decade ago an expert on a subject was talking about it. He corrected a page because the info presented with tons of sources all ended up taking their info from a single unreliable source. He had to edit things multiple times, making sure to follow guidelines, basically creating a new section that condensed his work on the subject to explain the controversy and so on... The page was edited back to its previous version every time because he didn't have enough local reputation and "older sources are more reliable"...
Could you link us the article?
And what's your source for that claim you keep making?
what's the article in question?
It's not an uncommon tale about Wikipedia, that's their biggest known issue with getting new blood into the community, which they've acknowledged themselves.
What's your damage?
TBH that doesn't surprise me.. I had a minor spat over the existence of a local supermarket, of all the stupid things.. Wiki said it had been refused planning permission and never built. I had shopped in there many times, and could link to many articles about the fully built existing supermarket. I gave up after the second revert because it's just not worth it.
That's a shame
This is the third insightful comment from you on this thread against him. Are you by any chance, the alt of the user who wrote the original article on Wiki of the OS?
Hello butthurt Wikipedia admin
there is a bureaucracy for dealing with the situation you described. the other editor gamed it, but if you were right, a little persistence would have left your edits in place.
Yes, but people shouldn't have to jump through hoops to help Wikipedia.
you're right. when transitioning away from reddit, i took the time to understand how to navigate the wikipedia editor bureaucracy. I understood most of it in a week. now i just monitor a few articles in which i have an interest, and add to that list periodically.
i wish it were easier. MY SUGGESTION is to just go ahead and use the talk page instead of the main article as your first place to make an edit. if it's a good edit, it's likely someone else will write the edit themselves. if they don't and you dont see objetions, that will help your edit stand up if there is an edit war.
That's what I did recently with my first contribution (not that I had any other option since the article wasn't accepting contributions from new users): One paragraph mentioned something and listed it as missing source, then the next paragraph mentioned it again and included a source. I went to the talk page and commented that the source was already there and it quickly got linked.
I'm a lot less active than I used to be, and I no longer have the time or energy to fight. Nowadays I stick to dry technical topics, personal hobbies and the wiki in my mothertongue.
I didn't know what to do. I was being threatened with a ban, even after explaining myself and my edits.
At the end of the day the Wikipedia page didn't matter to me that much. Who cares if people get misinformation about an OS update. I quite literally didn't get paid enough to deal with that.
It just really changed my perspective on Wikipedia. Unless you look at the history and check out profiles of people who get in edit battles, you really don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
At the end of the day the Wikipedia page I was trying to edit ended up being corrected by someone else (who completely disregarded all of my effort), but it took a month, and someone else to do it, before the page wasn't full of misinformation anymore. RIP to anyone who visited that page within that month and never returned, because they were fed 80% misinformation.
the etiquette and process is non-obvious so i think your reaction was totally understandable.
Pro wrestling wiki pages used to have entrance themes, finishers and signature moves in the wrestler's page.
One power-mod removed it and it's gone.
People suck wiki's cock on the Internet, but it's a pretty dogshit site and I wish it dies so that a new and better alternative pops up.
I think assuming a better alternative will appear is a bad idea. Most likely some company sees an opening to control the information and monetize it. They can't really now because Wikipedia is the default, but I don't doubt someone would try if they see the hold Wikipedia has falter.
It doesn't need to die for a new alternative to pop up.
I just doubt any alternative will be as good as the one we have now.
There will always be someone there to take its place. Maybe a more transparent and decentralised alternative like how fan-wikis used to be before Fandom bough them.
That sucks, but I also kind of empathize with wiki mods, cause it's really hard to know when to cut stuff down. I remember seeing a while back a bunch of people that migrated out from wikipedia to some completely unknown new wiki nobody will ever hear about, because they were working on chronicling all the roads in america with screenshots and notes of location and historical details about it all. Wikipedia didn't really get it, as it's more like a kind of academic and news aggregate, and there was nothing really there to aggregate, it was just an infodump of a bunch of different stuff. If wikipedia was a 1-1 map of the world, then it would be the size of the world. Or bigger, if you include historical stuff. No way you're fitting all that on a 102 gig drive, or whatever the size of wikipedia is. Plus there's hosting costs to consider, so it's not like they could do that even if they really wanted.
Tbh those pieces of trivia don't feel like encyclopedic information in the first place. A reader need not know specific intro songs to have an encyclopedic overview of wrestling, just that intro songs are often used.
A list containing the specific intro songs is vastly more suited for a fandom repository than an encyclopedia.
I have to disagree. Wrestling is all about the show, so a dedicated table of wrestlers' entrance themes, finishers and signature moves seems very on-brand for Wikipedia. It's also unclear if this was just a line item listed on every wrestlers' individual page or if this was a table, but either seems pretty on brand. Maybe there's a dedicated page for entrance theme music and a table of who used what song makes sense there?
To reference something I actually know about almost every Wikipedia page for a railroad will include a detailed route map. One could argue that that's not encyclopedia-like and should be reserved for a travel site or train chasing guide yet here we are
It's mostly true for articles that do not have large public coverage. Otherwise the number of those who stubbornly fight for the truth will prevail
How dare you trash Wikipedia on Lemmy? Infidel like you should be sent to gulag.