5 ms·

Typical Wrote up a long description about how the equipment I used for my master's worked (fleshing out a stub article). Only to have some moderator (being ext

by rob_c 5y ago

Typical Wrote up a long description about how the equipment I used for my master's worked (fleshing out a stub article). Only to have some moderator (being extremely polite here) revert the whole thing because it was "uncited". When challenged I ended up getting temp banned for telling them "I know how it works I just built one". Haven't trusted or contributed since it's moving closer to a collective "what we want to know" information service which makes me want to invest more in an actual encyclopedia.

rob_c 5y ago
At this point I'm willing to go to go toe on this on a typical debate perspective. If I'm being voted down what is so great about the ignorance of the masses here? Wikipedia has some serious (and in come cases concerningly anti-science) biases. Which is honestly love for them to address at a community level.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tempthrowaway1 5y ago
  Wikipedia is essentially just an echo chamber for western propaganda. Good luck if you have an actual primary source instead of some nonsense from a reliable "secondary source" like uncited junk from NPR.
  - rob_c 5y ago
    I like to dream. Now I remember why I liked encyclopedia encarta
tedsanders 5y ago
I know it's frustrating to write true things and have them deleted, but I hope you understand how bad it would be to generalize the rule "accept uncited/unverified claims as true if the account who wrote them says it's true." I say this as someone who spent weeks writing up a new Wikipedia article with 50 citations and then had it graded a C because I used too many primary sources instead of secondary sources. I empathize with you, but I also empathize with the editors.
- rob_c 5y ago
  Yes and no. I'd argue having an unpolished article in need of work is better than a stub as it encourages interaction. Not to mention being told to stop using a paywall for citing a journal (which is now out of print) as a source.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    The danger of the unpolished article thing is that if there is a falsehood on it people will publish the equivalent of this article but with the title: How a Wikipedia Lie Ruined This Man’s Life. Or some such thing.
    - rob_c 5y ago
      So nothing should go on the internet unless it's fact checked?
      - renewiltord 5y ago
        It can go on the Internet. It’s just that this subsector of the Internet has rules. I don’t think anyone will complain if you blog about your thing.
the_third_wave 5y ago
> it's moving closer to a collective "what we want to know" service I'd say it is moving towards a "what we want you to think" corpus, with politically motivated activists taking over from objective editors. Those activists will use the language of editors, calling upon the myriad of policies put in place when Wikipedia was growing, while bending and changing that language towards their own goals.
- rob_c 5y ago
  Unfortunately I have to agree which is a shame.
vidarh 5y ago
While I get this is frustrating, original research is explicitly against Wikipedia rules.
- rob_c 5y ago
  And citing out of print inaccessible paper journals is not regarded as evidence. (Apparently) Again I provided diagrams explaining how a piece of scientific equipment work in detail and this was disregarded because I didn't attach a link from some news outlet. This is just brain damagingly stupid.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > And citing out of print inaccessible paper journals is not regarded as evidence. [citation needed] I've seen plenty of references to "out of print inaccessible paper journals" in Wikipedia articles. They haven't been deleted.
    - rob_c 5y ago
      Yes they're up there. But having it held as a reason to have a page of scientific descriptions and drawings deleted is just madness.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    What you need to realise with respect to this is that it is not a judgement about whether or not the information is important or valid, but about whether or not it merits inclusion in Wikipedia. One can disagree with their goal, but their goal is not to be a repository for all the worlds knowledge, but to be a summary of attributable, notable knowledge. The problem is not citing out of print inaccessible paper journals, but about only citing that, and not citing secondary sources that helps establish notability. If nobody has talked about the primary source elsewhere, that means it likely does not belong in Wikipedia. Your out-of-print paper journal cite is useful to allow people to (with some effort, to be sure) verify the facts of the article, though. One of the downsides, I feel, about the prominence of Wikipedia is indeed that people fight over inclusion in Wikipedia rather than accept that many things belong in other datasets instead. E.g. descriptions of possibly important overlooked research would be valuable. I have my own little collection of papers that have had little direct impact that I personally believe should have, for example, and I wish I had time to write about them.
crazygringo 5y ago
You're being downvoted because everyone knows Wikipedia is built on citations. There's no way for any reader or editor to know whether you know how it works or not. So Wikipedia is built primarily around not even primary sources but secondary sources for a good reason. Yes it may lose out in some valuable knowledge such as yours in the process -- but it achieves a greater good of minimizing Wikipedia being flooded by incorrect or even harmful information. In the absence of an omniscient impartial arbitrer, requiring citations of secondary sources is a pretty good rule.
- MichaelGroves 5y ago
  > You're being downvoted because everyone knows Wikipedia is built on citations. Got a citation for that supposed common knowledge? I couldn't resist myself, but seriously, wikipedia purports to be built on citations but how often have you tried checking citations to see if they contain the information a wikipedia article claims? Many times I have found that information in a wikipedia article is nowhere to be found in the citations given. People often claim as I just have, criticizing wikipedia without providing specific examples, which wikipedia apologists seize on to dunk on the criticism. I don't think this is fair, keeping logs of wikipedia errors is a tedious hobby that most people aren't going to bother with for a number of reasons (because correcting wikipedia means wading into the bureaucracy which produced/permitted the errors in the first place, because 'everybody knows' that wikipedia is riddled with bullshit and pointing it out is thankless, etc) Nevertheless, I do have a specific example off the top of my head, which I found a few days ago: > Brilliant Pebbles was a non-nuclear system of satellite-based interceptors designed to use high-velocity, watermelon-sized, teardrop-shaped projectiles made of tungsten as kinetic warheads.[64][65] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Brilliant_Pebbles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#B... This sentence has two citations, and has the smell of truthiness. Tungsten kinetic impactors in space? I've heard that before somewhere, it sure sounds true! Besides, pebbles are like rocks, and a big ball of tungsten is like a rock. It all seems to jive and the claim has survived on this page for almost a decade. The problem? It's bullshit and neither of those citations back it up. Follow either citation and look for any claim of the PB interceptors being made out of tungsten; neither citation claims it. And if you read what they actually say about the interceptors, you'll see that tungsten interceptors don't even make sense in the first place. The Brilliant Pebbles system was meant to put thousands of tiny "hit to kill" (kinetic) interceptors into orbit, which would detect and intercept ballistic missile launches during the boost phase. To do that, they would need to be nimble, and to be nimble they would need to not be a watermelon sized chunk of tungsten. You can't move that much tungsten around quick on very short notice without large rocket motors, but those citations describe tiny interceptors. Furthermore, launching thousands of chunks of tungsten like that into orbit would scarcely be practical, even by SDI standards of practicality. And why would tungsten even be needed? They're meant to intercept ballistic missiles during the boost phase; just about anything more substantial than a sea gull should get the job done. If you want to get this fixed, be warned that this bullshit has been copied from wikipedia into 'reputable' publications like Popular Mechanics. So have fun explaining XKCD #978 to a wikipedian editor. I'll leave it for you to fix, if you care.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
The point is, that they don't know if you're telling the truth when you say "I just built one", there's no real way to ensure that they are knowledgeable enough in every single topic to be able to figure it out. So they adopted the sensible rule of requiring citations. This annoys people like you, who know stuff that isn't in Wikipedia, because it raises the effort required to get it in. But at the same time it stops Wikipedia being swamped with fabricated stuff. And provided a tractable problem whenever a dispute arises. Not "is this true" but "has this been cited in a trusted set of well known sources". In this particular case, this possibly has the unfortunate side effect of reflecting the biases of the well known sources, which is a shame.
- rob_c 5y ago
  Like the main article. Increasing the barrier to entry here didn't help. This isn't about a celebrities haircut. This is an admin who doesn't understand a topic sitting as gatekeeper on said topic. It doesn't scale and causes problems. Reducing the barrier to entry is better to encourage engagement. Higher barriers of entry should be needed for evolving topics as is appropriate but the fact Wikipedia has gone this way from my last attempt at a contribution (2004) is sad.
pomian 5y ago
This is a similar sentiment to many people who originally posted valuable information to Wikipedia, which later was deleted. What about historical people? Or historical actions? Science? Just because it is not a modern science fact, and is not always citable, doesn't mean it didn't happen. For example anecdotal science history, which can be fascinating. I hate to sound like an old guy, but in the old days, the whole point of Wikipedia was that we could learn things beyond Britannica and company. Ideas and history from all corners of the planet, painstakingly recorded by someone who took the time to write on a topic they had unique knowledge. Maybe we need a dual track Wikipedia - One moderated by the present wiki system, and the other, moderated by the public, as originally. I think the amount of people scamming the world is 1000's of times less than those who want to improve it. It's a shame to lose their knowledge and voice.

by rob_c 5y ago

rob_c 5y ago

At this point I'm willing to go to go toe on this on a typical debate perspective. If I'm being voted down what is so great about the ignorance of the masses here? Wikipedia has some serious (and in come cases concerningly anti-science) biases. Which is honestly love for them to address at a community level.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tempthrowaway1 5y ago
Wikipedia is essentially just an echo chamber for western propaganda. Good luck if you have an actual primary source instead of some nonsense from a reliable "secondary source" like uncited junk from NPR.
- rob_c 5y ago
  I like to dream. Now I remember why I liked encyclopedia encarta

tedsanders 5y ago

I know it's frustrating to write true things and have them deleted, but I hope you understand how bad it would be to generalize the rule "accept uncited/unverified claims as true if the account who wrote them says it's true." I say this as someone who spent weeks writing up a new Wikipedia article with 50 citations and then had it graded a C because I used too many primary sources instead of secondary sources. I empathize with you, but I also empathize with the editors.

rob_c 5y ago
Yes and no. I'd argue having an unpolished article in need of work is better than a stub as it encourages interaction. Not to mention being told to stop using a paywall for citing a journal (which is now out of print) as a source.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  The danger of the unpolished article thing is that if there is a falsehood on it people will publish the equivalent of this article but with the title: How a Wikipedia Lie Ruined This Man’s Life. Or some such thing.
  - rob_c 5y ago
    So nothing should go on the internet unless it's fact checked?
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      It can go on the Internet. It’s just that this subsector of the Internet has rules. I don’t think anyone will complain if you blog about your thing.

the_third_wave 5y ago

> it's moving closer to a collective "what we want to know" service I'd say it is moving towards a "what we want you to think" corpus, with politically motivated activists taking over from objective editors. Those activists will use the language of editors, calling upon the myriad of policies put in place when Wikipedia was growing, while bending and changing that language towards their own goals.

rob_c 5y ago
Unfortunately I have to agree which is a shame.

vidarh 5y ago

While I get this is frustrating, original research is explicitly against Wikipedia rules.

rob_c 5y ago
And citing out of print inaccessible paper journals is not regarded as evidence. (Apparently) Again I provided diagrams explaining how a piece of scientific equipment work in detail and this was disregarded because I didn't attach a link from some news outlet. This is just brain damagingly stupid.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > And citing out of print inaccessible paper journals is not regarded as evidence. [citation needed] I've seen plenty of references to "out of print inaccessible paper journals" in Wikipedia articles. They haven't been deleted.
  - rob_c 5y ago
    Yes they're up there. But having it held as a reason to have a page of scientific descriptions and drawings deleted is just madness.
- vidarh 5y ago
  What you need to realise with respect to this is that it is not a judgement about whether or not the information is important or valid, but about whether or not it merits inclusion in Wikipedia. One can disagree with their goal, but their goal is not to be a repository for all the worlds knowledge, but to be a summary of attributable, notable knowledge. The problem is not citing out of print inaccessible paper journals, but about only citing that, and not citing secondary sources that helps establish notability. If nobody has talked about the primary source elsewhere, that means it likely does not belong in Wikipedia. Your out-of-print paper journal cite is useful to allow people to (with some effort, to be sure) verify the facts of the article, though. One of the downsides, I feel, about the prominence of Wikipedia is indeed that people fight over inclusion in Wikipedia rather than accept that many things belong in other datasets instead. E.g. descriptions of possibly important overlooked research would be valuable. I have my own little collection of papers that have had little direct impact that I personally believe should have, for example, and I wish I had time to write about them.

crazygringo 5y ago

You're being downvoted because everyone knows Wikipedia is built on citations. There's no way for any reader or editor to know whether you know how it works or not. So Wikipedia is built primarily around not even primary sources but secondary sources for a good reason. Yes it may lose out in some valuable knowledge such as yours in the process -- but it achieves a greater good of minimizing Wikipedia being flooded by incorrect or even harmful information. In the absence of an omniscient impartial arbitrer, requiring citations of secondary sources is a pretty good rule.

MichaelGroves 5y ago
> You're being downvoted because everyone knows Wikipedia is built on citations. Got a citation for that supposed common knowledge? I couldn't resist myself, but seriously, wikipedia purports to be built on citations but how often have you tried checking citations to see if they contain the information a wikipedia article claims? Many times I have found that information in a wikipedia article is nowhere to be found in the citations given. People often claim as I just have, criticizing wikipedia without providing specific examples, which wikipedia apologists seize on to dunk on the criticism. I don't think this is fair, keeping logs of wikipedia errors is a tedious hobby that most people aren't going to bother with for a number of reasons (because correcting wikipedia means wading into the bureaucracy which produced/permitted the errors in the first place, because 'everybody knows' that wikipedia is riddled with bullshit and pointing it out is thankless, etc) Nevertheless, I do have a specific example off the top of my head, which I found a few days ago: > Brilliant Pebbles was a non-nuclear system of satellite-based interceptors designed to use high-velocity, watermelon-sized, teardrop-shaped projectiles made of tungsten as kinetic warheads.[64][65] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Brilliant_Pebbles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#B... This sentence has two citations, and has the smell of truthiness. Tungsten kinetic impactors in space? I've heard that before somewhere, it sure sounds true! Besides, pebbles are like rocks, and a big ball of tungsten is like a rock. It all seems to jive and the claim has survived on this page for almost a decade. The problem? It's bullshit and neither of those citations back it up. Follow either citation and look for any claim of the PB interceptors being made out of tungsten; neither citation claims it. And if you read what they actually say about the interceptors, you'll see that tungsten interceptors don't even make sense in the first place. The Brilliant Pebbles system was meant to put thousands of tiny "hit to kill" (kinetic) interceptors into orbit, which would detect and intercept ballistic missile launches during the boost phase. To do that, they would need to be nimble, and to be nimble they would need to not be a watermelon sized chunk of tungsten. You can't move that much tungsten around quick on very short notice without large rocket motors, but those citations describe tiny interceptors. Furthermore, launching thousands of chunks of tungsten like that into orbit would scarcely be practical, even by SDI standards of practicality. And why would tungsten even be needed? They're meant to intercept ballistic missiles during the boost phase; just about anything more substantial than a sea gull should get the job done. If you want to get this fixed, be warned that this bullshit has been copied from wikipedia into 'reputable' publications like Popular Mechanics. So have fun explaining XKCD #978 to a wikipedian editor. I'll leave it for you to fix, if you care.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

The point is, that they don't know if you're telling the truth when you say "I just built one", there's no real way to ensure that they are knowledgeable enough in every single topic to be able to figure it out. So they adopted the sensible rule of requiring citations. This annoys people like you, who know stuff that isn't in Wikipedia, because it raises the effort required to get it in. But at the same time it stops Wikipedia being swamped with fabricated stuff. And provided a tractable problem whenever a dispute arises. Not "is this true" but "has this been cited in a trusted set of well known sources". In this particular case, this possibly has the unfortunate side effect of reflecting the biases of the well known sources, which is a shame.

rob_c 5y ago
Like the main article. Increasing the barrier to entry here didn't help. This isn't about a celebrities haircut. This is an admin who doesn't understand a topic sitting as gatekeeper on said topic. It doesn't scale and causes problems. Reducing the barrier to entry is better to encourage engagement. Higher barriers of entry should be needed for evolving topics as is appropriate but the fact Wikipedia has gone this way from my last attempt at a contribution (2004) is sad.

pomian 5y ago

This is a similar sentiment to many people who originally posted valuable information to Wikipedia, which later was deleted. What about historical people? Or historical actions? Science? Just because it is not a modern science fact, and is not always citable, doesn't mean it didn't happen. For example anecdotal science history, which can be fascinating. I hate to sound like an old guy, but in the old days, the whole point of Wikipedia was that we could learn things beyond Britannica and company. Ideas and history from all corners of the planet, painstakingly recorded by someone who took the time to write on a topic they had unique knowledge. Maybe we need a dual track Wikipedia - One moderated by the present wiki system, and the other, moderated by the public, as originally. I think the amount of people scamming the world is 1000's of times less than those who want to improve it. It's a shame to lose their knowledge and voice.