4 ms·

I have a friend and former boss who has a Wikipedia article. He has two careers in which he is about equally Notable, but the article is all about one of them,

by psyc 4y ago

I have a friend and former boss who has a Wikipedia article. He has two careers in which he is about equally Notable, but the article is all about one of them, and contains not one sentence about the other. To someone who knows him, it's very weird. But to someone stumbling on the article, they don't know any better. Of course I thought (for about 5 seconds) hey I'll edit the wiki. But I know better than to waste my time on it. It wouldn't work. There's nothing to cite. Just my personal knowledge, because I was there. His other accomplishments took place before the Web took off. Before stuff got written about everything. There's probably something in the way of sources I could track down if my life depended on it, but it doesn't. So I left a comment on the talk page. That was probably 8 years ago, and nothing happened. I mean, even if maybe his other career wasn't quite Wikipedia-Notable, it would still make a really interesting couple of sentences given that his Wikipedia page did make the notable cut, and he was also super successful in this other field that you'd never ever guess he'd been involved in because it has zero to do with what Wikipedia thinks his main thing is.

tptacek 4y ago
It sounds like Wikipedia is working the way it should work here. If there are no reliable secondary sources that wrote about your boss' other career, there's nothing for Wikipedia to cover about it. The alternative, of people who believe they have firsthand knowledge about subjects just writing free-form in encyclopedia pages, obviously wouldn't work.
- psyc 4y ago
  Sure, sure. Obviously. My frustrations with Wikipedia stem from having begun editing and delighting in it in 2001, and having ragequit circa 2006. I'm well aware that I definitively "lost" my side of that battle well over a decade ago. Just spinning a yarn.
  - zo1 4y ago
    I also gave up around 2008/9. It was such an amazing, wild west of people contributing in any which way they could, illuminating bad edits, and trying to coordinate it all among the chaos. Now it's just solidified into maintenance and administration mode. If they allow anything wild again, they risk losing their position and every organization seeks to propagate and continue its own existence, so they don't allow anything anymore.
- shaky-carrousel 4y ago
  It's slightly funny that all the people complaining about the Wikipedia here, what they are really showing is that Wikipedia still works, and it is doing it as intended.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I struggle with how to describe it. Is it the most successful project in the history of the Internet? Probably! "Modern intellectual history"? Ew. But: maybe? We're blasé about it because we've lived with it for so long. But it's truly an amazing thing.
    - hooande 4y ago
      I'm going to say one of the most valuable creations of humanity, period. People compare it to an encyclopedia, but I had encyclopedias as a kid and wikipedia covers way more information in an order of magnitude more detail. Even compared to say, the Library of Congress, it has 1) multiple authors per article 2) intense scrutiny over disputed information and 3) hyperlinks to primary sources If I had to restart civilization from scratch, a copy of wikipedia would be the #1 thing I would want.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jiro 4y ago
    It's "working as intended" in the sense that its rules are being followed. The problem is that the rules are only there because we want Wikipedia to actually be useful as a source of knowledge, and the rules which demand removing this information have failed at this larger goal.
    - akvadrako 4y ago
      Agreed. Wikipedia would be much better without notability requirements, etc.
      - 4y ago
- Marazan 4y ago
  One of my wife's family ancestors has a Wikipedia article. They are a reasonably famous person in their niche, multiple biographies written about them - at least one of which was cited (and clearly plagiarised in one part) in the article. There was a glaring, massive factual error in the Wikipedia article - 10 seconds with any source about him would have highlighted what the error was. They said he was X, and he was actually Y and being Y was a big part of his life. We edited it - given that every single primary source about him says he was Y (including the sources cited on the page) this should have been cut and dried. It was reverted. After a while the massive factual error was replaced with a weasel worded "there was some evidence he was Y". Someone who clearly had no clue about the historical figure was involved in small minded, petty guarding of the article under cover of "avoiding controversy" - quite possibly agenda driven to keep him in the X categorisation. I note that even though the article is now massively improved it manages to totally avoid mentioning that he was Y. If that is "working as intended" then Wikipedia is fundamentally broken and cannot be trusted for any information.
  - Marazan 4y ago
    Incidentally i think Wikipedia is great and use it all the time. But the industrial level "eyes closed fingers in the ears" by its fanboys whenever valid criticism is raised continues to be infuriating.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    What's the article? Let's look at the specifics. Things definitely go wrong on WP!
- ghaff 4y ago
  That's reasonable for the most part. Another, probably even more common case, it that someone's professional identity and work will often be pretty well documented, referenced, and discussed--while there will often be next to nothing about them personally. In fact, I'd say that was the norm for pretty much any executive, researcher, journalist, etc.

by psyc 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago

It sounds like Wikipedia is working the way it should work here. If there are no reliable secondary sources that wrote about your boss' other career, there's nothing for Wikipedia to cover about it. The alternative, of people who believe they have firsthand knowledge about subjects just writing free-form in encyclopedia pages, obviously wouldn't work.

psyc 4y ago
Sure, sure. Obviously. My frustrations with Wikipedia stem from having begun editing and delighting in it in 2001, and having ragequit circa 2006. I'm well aware that I definitively "lost" my side of that battle well over a decade ago. Just spinning a yarn.
- zo1 4y ago
  I also gave up around 2008/9. It was such an amazing, wild west of people contributing in any which way they could, illuminating bad edits, and trying to coordinate it all among the chaos. Now it's just solidified into maintenance and administration mode. If they allow anything wild again, they risk losing their position and every organization seeks to propagate and continue its own existence, so they don't allow anything anymore.
shaky-carrousel 4y ago
It's slightly funny that all the people complaining about the Wikipedia here, what they are really showing is that Wikipedia still works, and it is doing it as intended.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I struggle with how to describe it. Is it the most successful project in the history of the Internet? Probably! "Modern intellectual history"? Ew. But: maybe? We're blasé about it because we've lived with it for so long. But it's truly an amazing thing.
  - hooande 4y ago
    I'm going to say one of the most valuable creations of humanity, period. People compare it to an encyclopedia, but I had encyclopedias as a kid and wikipedia covers way more information in an order of magnitude more detail. Even compared to say, the Library of Congress, it has 1) multiple authors per article 2) intense scrutiny over disputed information and 3) hyperlinks to primary sources If I had to restart civilization from scratch, a copy of wikipedia would be the #1 thing I would want.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Jiro 4y ago
  It's "working as intended" in the sense that its rules are being followed. The problem is that the rules are only there because we want Wikipedia to actually be useful as a source of knowledge, and the rules which demand removing this information have failed at this larger goal.
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    Agreed. Wikipedia would be much better without notability requirements, etc.
    - 4y ago
Marazan 4y ago
One of my wife's family ancestors has a Wikipedia article. They are a reasonably famous person in their niche, multiple biographies written about them - at least one of which was cited (and clearly plagiarised in one part) in the article. There was a glaring, massive factual error in the Wikipedia article - 10 seconds with any source about him would have highlighted what the error was. They said he was X, and he was actually Y and being Y was a big part of his life. We edited it - given that every single primary source about him says he was Y (including the sources cited on the page) this should have been cut and dried. It was reverted. After a while the massive factual error was replaced with a weasel worded "there was some evidence he was Y". Someone who clearly had no clue about the historical figure was involved in small minded, petty guarding of the article under cover of "avoiding controversy" - quite possibly agenda driven to keep him in the X categorisation. I note that even though the article is now massively improved it manages to totally avoid mentioning that he was Y. If that is "working as intended" then Wikipedia is fundamentally broken and cannot be trusted for any information.
- Marazan 4y ago
  Incidentally i think Wikipedia is great and use it all the time. But the industrial level "eyes closed fingers in the ears" by its fanboys whenever valid criticism is raised continues to be infuriating.
- tptacek 4y ago
  What's the article? Let's look at the specifics. Things definitely go wrong on WP!
ghaff 4y ago
That's reasonable for the most part. Another, probably even more common case, it that someone's professional identity and work will often be pretty well documented, referenced, and discussed--while there will often be next to nothing about them personally. In fact, I'd say that was the norm for pretty much any executive, researcher, journalist, etc.