23
Condor
5y

!dev && rant

What's people's problem with Wikipedia.

Earlier this week I told my cleaning lady about how Black Friday was so pointless this year, and apparently it's the first thing she heard about Black Friday (she's in her late 30's and a mother of 2, go figure). Not only that but she believed that it occurred every end of the month because someone else told her so. She said it would make sense because it's close to everyone's payday.

So I go and look up some information about Black Friday for her. All the DDG results somehow shit or cluttered by marketing wank.. your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, appended Wikipedia to get some reasonably good information quick. And that looked for all the world like that was the case. Apparently it's got to do with American Thanksgiving.. who knew?

She still didn't believe it. "But that's Wikipedia..." So she looked it up on her own phone on some random local site.. it confirmed that indeed it occurs once a year. Well, confirmed to the extent that there was "2017", "2018" and "2019" on the page... Yeah.

Finally she believed it. At least she didn't double down on it anymore. But seriously.. you're gonna take the words of one random person over a medium that's constantly being improved under the many eyes principle?

"People can edit Wikipedia so therefore it's bad"

I really don't get people...

Comments
  • 10
    But people can edit anything so its bad

    Better believe what demented aunt Betty said 5 years ago when she was ranting about the word black again
  • 5
    It happens more often than you might think. People will change shit just to back up their own arguments lol. But yeah Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving. There's also a "small business Saturday" and then cyber Monday ofc.
  • 7
    @alexbrooklyn Woooooooow, not Black Betty!😅

    @condor, some people enjoy living under a rock hidden away from society and it's money grabbing deals.
  • 0
    Well yes'nt.
    Untrusted people's ability to modify Wikipedia could theoretically endanger it as an 'untrusted source'.
    (Also the reason why my school forbids use of it.)

    Anyhow currently it's still trusted.
  • 4
    My favorite thing ever is whenever people fuck with sports teams' or athletes' Wikipedia pages after some event.

    Example:
  • 5
    Frankly I do take wiki with a grain of salt as well. I do look it up initially, but after that I like to confirm its info with other sources.

    Reasons:
    - it has lied to me in the past
    - anyone can edit and make wiki articles inacurate
    - i prefer to have at least two unrelated sources agreeing on the same piece of info.
  • 5
    At least in my country you are told to not cite wikipedia in assignments in school (atleast that is how it was when I was in school). Probably to the 'don't believe anything on the internet' thing and to avoid least effort path.
    And yes, common misconception is that sice everyone can contribute that everything is compromised and not revised, so it automatically makes it bad info for such people.
    Both can be avoided if you check on the linked pages to the article to some 'more valid' sources & a bit of your own research..but in the end, people will always believe what they want..
  • 0
    Wikipedia is generally janky.
  • 0
    currently, out of the 5,978,302 articles on wikipedia, 30,346 are categorized as good articles (about 1 in 198)
    generally, wikipedia is only 0.5% good, other info on wikipedia is the same as on the rest of internet and presumably is not good
  • 1
    @bvs23bkv33 Is it because of malice or just incomplete articles?
  • 1
    She has a point with the "editing" but i feel you, this is a huge problem also in our country... dont get me started about political arguments, thats just a toxic shitfuckery
  • 4
    i tried to edit an article once but the moderators changed it all back. several times. since it was a topic of my profession it left me very disappointed who tf has the control over truth and trustworthy information. since then it is the last place to look something up, if i am very desperate only.
  • 2
    @erroronline1 iirc moderators are picked from the community by the actual Wikipedia admins. There's been a lot of drama recently, though they try to keep it hidden from the general public.
  • 1
    "marketingwank" what a beautiful phrase, i'm positively jealous I didn't invent it.

    The attack on wikipedia is really about undermining the publics perception of where authority should lay. "Experts" and authoritarian bureaucrats in NGOs, megacorps, news, and universities would rather you, the ordinary guy on the street, believe you're not capable of coming to a rational sound decision through research.

    Naturally some people run with this notion and veer off into dangerous and wild ideas, completely outside the scope of their ability to actually research but thats the price of independence, and hopefully, eugenically, this liberty removes them, e.x. darwin awards, but I digress.

    Anyone that wants to tell me or you, or any of us what to think can go suck an egg.

    Also, we should spread a rumor that blackfriday is the last friday of every month.

    People are gonna be pisssssed when they don't get discounts. Should ruin the magic of

    black friday after less than a year.
  • 2
    @Wisecrack i liked the wiki concept once and understand your position.
    on the other hand researching a topic does mean to have asked experts at least indirectly.
    also the effort of research is not traceable if not methodically documented. and if an expert contributing to free knowledge is quietened down by a moderator because of reasons all becomes a matter of power instead reasonable knowledge.
  • 1
    Generally Wikipedia is pretty accurate in my opinion. Is everything? I can't say. But I use it and I'm fine with that.
  • 1
    @erroronline1

    power is all there is in this world.

    it can be naked, it can be veiled, but the power remains.

    "The question is, which is to be master—that's all."

    He who protests, protests what has been and always will be. It's in our nature to be absolutely corrupt, everything we build either starts out unfair or becomes unfair with time and falls into ruin.

    That experts are not consulted, or a voice of truth is stomped out, is not the exception, but the norm.

    It is a trivial matter, however terrible in scope.
  • 2
    I knew it was you when I saw the cleaning lady part :)
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