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I used to think it was the best thing humanity created. Lately, I see individuals, and companies carefully crafting pages to further their agenda. It could be

I used to think it was the best thing humanity created. Lately, I see individuals, and companies carefully crafting pages to further their agenda. It could be PR, name recognition, or inaccurate information reguarding their cause. It could be as subtle as changing the definition of a neologism to singular, rather than plural. I ran across this recently. Someone wanted to promote their technospeck.whatever domain, but the plural was taken, so they deleted all the wiki information on the original neologism, and in turn just put, "for plural see the singular page.". Bringing in overnight credibility to their domain name. What bothers me is the changes, or complete rewrite of certain pages are obviously done for monetary reasons, and the Editors don't seem to notice the motives behind the obvious manipulation. I don't want to be one of those people who claims a service was better in the past, but once people realized they could use Wikipedia to as indirect/free advertising; that's when I lost interest. I would miss Wikipedia if it collapsed. Do I have a feeling someone else might be able to do a better job? Yes! In this case, I feel the federal government could do a better job with Wikipedia? I would rather see four billion going to unemployed paid/trained Editors--instead of self-driving technology. Editors trained mainly in sniffing out manipulation of history/facts for personal/corporate gain.

antsar 11y ago
Trusting the federal gov't to be the arbiter of truth? Sounds like a rather bad idea.
cooper12 11y ago
If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? Wikipedia belongs to all of us, if you have the mindset that it's someone else's problem to fix, then you're missing Wikipedia's point. There's nothing wrong with being just a consumer, but this is just like someone complaining that their favorite open source project is a buggy piece of crap. The solution? Open an issue in the bug tracker (the talk page) or send a pull request. (The edit button, where it's even easier because your changes don't need to be reviewed first) Yes, nefarious and subtle advertising on Wikipedia are serious issues, but as Linus's Law says: with enough eyes all bugs are shallow.
- HarryHirsch 11y ago
  You make dealing with PR-driven agenda sound so easy, but the actual practice is so different. There was the guy from BP, who announced that he was indeed from BP and proceeded to whitewash the article on his employer. Then there was the fellow with the India Institute of Management, who took down the slightly less shady competition and made his employer look splendid, and carried on for years, and just now there was the guy from Monsanto that it took ages to get banned. As just some dude, I take more pleasure in walking the dog than fighting an unwinnable battle against better-equipped forces.
- 10909489 11y ago
  > If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? In my case, I can't. I began editing Wikipedia in 2004, and I got banned last year after leaving a message on the talk page of another user telling them not to use aggressive language when interacting with new users. The way oversight on Wikipedia works is that it's incredibly easy for someone to block you if you do something that they read as a slight towards them. It's something you know all along if you spend any amount of time on Wikipedia. Over the years I was constantly running into people talking about things like overreach and abusive admins, but as an editor, you don't really look into those cases. When you're more interesting in creating content than getting involved, you trust that the admins are doing their jobs properly, and if they ever aren't, then the conflict resolution process will take care of them.
  - jcrben 11y ago
    That's pretty odd and concerning. If you email me at ben@bencreasy.com I will look into it, because I've never seen an editor get blocked for something like that - unless you don't know the right people or process to ask for an appeal. Even then, Wikipedia is relatively forgiving and we're usually willing to take people back if they want to give it another shot. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_offer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_offer

antsar 11y ago

Trusting the federal gov't to be the arbiter of truth? Sounds like a rather bad idea.

cooper12 11y ago

If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? Wikipedia belongs to all of us, if you have the mindset that it's someone else's problem to fix, then you're missing Wikipedia's point. There's nothing wrong with being just a consumer, but this is just like someone complaining that their favorite open source project is a buggy piece of crap. The solution? Open an issue in the bug tracker (the talk page) or send a pull request. (The edit button, where it's even easier because your changes don't need to be reviewed first) Yes, nefarious and subtle advertising on Wikipedia are serious issues, but as Linus's Law says: with enough eyes all bugs are shallow.

HarryHirsch 11y ago
You make dealing with PR-driven agenda sound so easy, but the actual practice is so different. There was the guy from BP, who announced that he was indeed from BP and proceeded to whitewash the article on his employer. Then there was the fellow with the India Institute of Management, who took down the slightly less shady competition and made his employer look splendid, and carried on for years, and just now there was the guy from Monsanto that it took ages to get banned. As just some dude, I take more pleasure in walking the dog than fighting an unwinnable battle against better-equipped forces.
10909489 11y ago
> If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? In my case, I can't. I began editing Wikipedia in 2004, and I got banned last year after leaving a message on the talk page of another user telling them not to use aggressive language when interacting with new users. The way oversight on Wikipedia works is that it's incredibly easy for someone to block you if you do something that they read as a slight towards them. It's something you know all along if you spend any amount of time on Wikipedia. Over the years I was constantly running into people talking about things like overreach and abusive admins, but as an editor, you don't really look into those cases. When you're more interesting in creating content than getting involved, you trust that the admins are doing their jobs properly, and if they ever aren't, then the conflict resolution process will take care of them.
- jcrben 11y ago
  That's pretty odd and concerning. If you email me at ben@bencreasy.com I will look into it, because I've never seen an editor get blocked for something like that - unless you don't know the right people or process to ask for an appeal. Even then, Wikipedia is relatively forgiving and we're usually willing to take people back if they want to give it another shot. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_offer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_offer