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> that's the unfortunate thing about growing and becoming a massive encyclopedia that's more respected than it was in 2004 In the very few areas where I am wel
by casenmgreen 2y ago
> that's the unfortunate thing about growing and becoming a massive encyclopedia that's more respected than it was in 2004
In the very few areas where I am well read or even an expert, the Wiki articles I read horrify me. I consider them wholly misleading and improper. As such, I do not read Wiki articles on anything subjective (history, people, etc) because such articles of this type I am in a position to judge, I judge very poorly indeed, so I have reason to think all articles of these types are no good, at all.
For some classes of articles, such as math or computer science concepts, I find all Wiki articles utterly hopeless - the explanations only make sense to someone who already understands.
I'm conscious also of the massive propaganda efforts being exerted by various entities on various pages, such as, for example, the Ukraine War, or the Russian Government.
This leaves the balance, articles on simple, fairly non-subjective and uncontrovertial subjects, and they seem okay.
It's not great, and when I really do need to know about something, I consult an actual, curated, non-mass-edited encyclopedia.
Also, many years ago, I used to edit/contribute, but that stopped, because it became increasingly difficult and unpleasant due to other editors, and in any event, anything you added sooner or later would be removed or edited away, one way or another.
Oh and then have the Foundation, doing it's voodoo-idiocy in the background, such as the amazing new editor which no one wants or likes.
- lblume 2y agoCould you give concrete examples of obviously misleading articles? Maybe depends on perspective, but I would consider most articles I found to be at the very least to be acceptable. My new tab page is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random, so I engage with the content a lot. I also think that with CS and similar articles, it boils down to the learning type of the person in question. I can personally grasp new concepts very well through articles just because of the linked structure, that if I don't yet know something, I can just click on it and create a connection.
- suddenlybananas 2y agoA lot of the theoretical linguistics articles are quite bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner_phrase#Arguments_for_NP_over_DP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner_phrase#Arguments_fo... is full of bizarre arguments that don't make sense in the tradition that postulated the DP hypothesis. Not only that, but the trees are written in a really bizarre way for a topic in generative grammar.
- casenmgreen 2y agoA friend of mine, Cambridge graduate, a day or two ago needed to read about normalization. We looked at the Wiki page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization A huge page, and for someone who doesn't know what normalization is, totally and utterly useless in every possible way. Hell, I've been using computers since I was a child, read the Date book, wrote my own relational database from scratch, and I don't know what some of the stuff on that page means. Explaining everything in terms which themselves need explanation is not useful, and it is the absolute hallmark of science wikipedia articles. So what I would say is this : you can't learn from Wikipedia articles. They do not teach. Which makes me question their value. What are they for?
- jprete 2y agoLooking at the database article, I now realize that many of the math and physics articles are written in exactly that style. The authors seem to give complete and thorough maximally-formal definitions first, and only afterwards (if at all) attempt to explain it to people that don't already know the subject. Thinking about it, this is exactly what I would expect from a process that overemphasizes formal rules of evidence and precision over being of value to the general public.
- casenmgreen 2y agoThere are various bits of history where I'm reasonably well read, and one is the Vietnam War. The Wiki page is here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War To my eye, it presents a wholly and utterly misleading picture of events. The Vietnamese simply wanted independence, because they were sick of the brutality of French rule. Everything that happened after came from the French not wanting to go away, and hood-winking the Americans into supporting them, and then the French went away anyway, and left the Americans carrying the can.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoA lot of that seems covered in the article about the First Indochina War which is linked to in the first sentence of the article on the Vietnam War. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War Do you perhaps consider them part of the same longer war? It's hard to break continuous history into neat article chunks.
- rozab 2y agoDr Angela Collier has this fun concept she calls Mann-Gell Amnesia about how basic explanations of topics you are an expert in always seem very unsatisfactory, even when they come from good sources. It's definitely a weird little bias I've noticed in myself! https://youtu.be/wBBnfu8N_J0?si=zwSwo4L-ZfFPk0fW&t=642 https://youtu.be/wBBnfu8N_J0?si=zwSwo4L-ZfFPk0fW&t=642