Wikipedia Accuracy

Use the edit function on any wiki page.

Yes. But the site owners may possibly undo your work. Depends how they view it. I haven't edited a page for ages.

Correct. There's a discussion area behind each page where you can do this. You get there by clicking 'Discussion', above each article title. 

Actually it is simple. Create an account. Then you can edit anything. It will be reviewed by reviewers. If your changes are reasonable and if no one opposes your changes, it will be approved. If you do many approved edits you can rise in the hierarchy and become a reviewer yourself.

Who is high in the hierarchy depends on edit counting (not expert knowledge). For example, you can accumulate edit counting by correcting in the articles grammar and spelling.
That is the reason why I do not trust wikipedia very much. Consulting wikipedia is like asking a mass of people what they think about a certain problem. You do not ask experts. The result of your query is what a lot of people think about this question.
The advantage of wiki is that you get a quick answer on practically anything. It is quite accurate on technical issues, where there is only one right or wrong.
The disadvantage is that it is not an expert answer. And in social questions where you can have different opinions it is quite inaccurate. In obscure topics you might get obscure answers, because too few people viewed it to correct errors.

These are reasons I do not participate on wiki (german) regularly. I only correct obvious errors (like birth dates of people and things like that.)

Henry Plainview wrote:   Vibrationbaby wrote: Dean wrote: They are trying to up it's credibility and stop silly editing. If you need to change something it's best to discuss it first and have be able to give good citations and reference sources for your information - personal memory/knowledge is not enough. Well, it's about some of the planes I actually flew. So my corrections will be coming from the horse's mouth. Not only do I see a lot of errors on Wikipedia but on tons of other sites. I duno  You can't take everything on the web as gospel. The nature of the beast. I'll give it a try by discussing it. Yeah, if the deletionists notice that they're not going to let you by without a citation. Whether they do depends on the profile of the article. There have been a rash of articles about Wikipedia because of its birthday, and basically the number of contributers has been declining steadily since 2004 or so because normal people are getting tired of arguing with the circle-jerking editors to keep their contributions up, so there's mostly only the power users left. I've never felt the need to edit Wikipedia except for a few grammar errors that I couldn't bear in the (increasingly rare) unprotected articles. I wish I had gotten an account back in the day for the street cred, though.

I find it a little amusing that the only time I've ever attempted to add to an article it was removed, yet I am cited as a reference in another entry. Apparently my "word" outside Wikiworld carries more weight within it 

 

Dean wrote:    I find it a little amusing that the only time I've ever attempted to add to an article it was removed, yet I am cited as a reference in another entry. Apparently my "word" outside Wikiworld carries more weight within it

Yeah, I understand the point of the sourcing policies, but it gets silly very quickly. And I don't know what you added, but it's hard to defend deletions of any remotely useful information when there's crap like this. I also think their music notability guidelines seem short sighted, although I can't say I've actually had any personal run-ins with it other than our repeated failure to get our own page. But I would probably start to bump up against it if I were creating the pages I wanted. 

Henry Plainview wrote:   Dean wrote:    I find it a little amusing that the only time I've ever attempted to add to an article it was removed, yet I am cited as a reference in another entry. Apparently my "word" outside Wikiworld carries more weight within it  Yeah, I understand the point of the sourcing policies, but it gets silly very quickly. And I don't know what you added, but it's hard to defend deletions of any remotely useful information when there's crap like this. I also think their music notability guidelines seem short sighted, although I can't say I've actually had any personal run-ins with it other than our repeated failure to get our own page. But I would probably start to bump up against it if I were creating the pages I wanted.

The ProgArchives is considered as a credible source of reference to Wikiworld, but not worthy of inclusion in it.

Dean wrote: The ProgArchives is considered as a credible source of reference to Wikiworld, but not worthy of inclusion in it. Whereas Encyclopedia Metallum (aka Metal Archives) and Rainwave (a lesser known Game music archive) apparently are worthy. The logic and reasoning behind this escapes me, but not enough to care.

Yeah, I go to the Wiki for some things but leaving us out is glaring omission and gives reason to seriously question the site's credibility and it will be a cold day in hell before they get any money out of me even if I had any to spare.  Ahh, I just went there and Ronald Regan was the featured picture.  That speaks volumes.  The dickweed that makes money off the site is no longer putting his pic on up front fortunately.

I don't think I'll even bother correcting them. I sincerelyhope  people don't actually use Wikipedia to obtain knowledge rather than books and what is taught in schools. Or for that matter the internet. The internet was initially developed to send encrypted messages by the US  military & government agencies and then it just got out of control. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it was because of the proliferation of  pornography in cyberspace that really started the big internet mess. 

Edited by Vibrationbaby - February 07 2011 at 10:21

Finally, a keyboard just for men!
Thanks to Paul W


Edited by Slartibartfast - February 07 2011 at 18:38