Why I dislike wikipedia

Almost every time I try to add to an entry, the changes I made are reverted out. Quick example: Their entry for Love the Beast is a boring stub. This is the entire thing:

Love The Beast is a 2009 documentary film directed by Eric Bana, and featuring Bana, Jay Leno, Jeremy Clarkson and Phil McGraw. Ford XB Falcon Hardtop, similar to Bana's "Beast" The film documents the 25-year history of Eric Bana's first car, a 1974 Ford XB Falcon Hardtop. Bana purchased the car at the age of fifteen for AU $1100. Bana is a motor racing enthusiast, and participates in various motor racing competitions in Australia. [1] The film was released on 12 March 2009 in Australia, on 16 Nov 2009 in the UK and on 15 April 2010 in the U.S..

I tried to add just a little information

The film documents the 25-year history of Eric Bana's first car, a 1974 [[Ford XB Falcon|Ford XB Falcon Hardtop]]. Bana purchased the car at the age of fifteen for AU $1100. The film details the central role that fixing and racing this car has played in his life and the lives of his friends. He describes it as serving the role of a campfire around which they gather

After uploading the changes, I saw that I had used "role" in two adjacent sentences, and tried re-editing it to fix that. (I wanted to say, "...describes it as being like a campfire") When I opened the edit window, my changes were gone, and this message was waiting for me:

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Love the Beast with this edit, did not appear to be constructive, and has been reverted or removed.

I'm not sure how adding some context to the stub "did not appear to be constructive"

Find the article that quotes him or the person to whom the quote was said, use quotation marks, then footnote / attribute the article / person containing the quote. That should do it.

Looks like you encountered an "article czar", which is someone who sits and watches their pet articles constantly and instantly reverts any changes not made by themselves. Good luck getting around that one.

Wikipedia is made entirely of officious buttholes. It is not even remotely unbiased and has become nothing more than a platform for self-important know-it-alls to tell you how they think the world works. If I were a professor, and a student handed me a paper that cited Wikipedia anywhere, I would reject it and make him/her rewrite.

The worst is that now mass media love to take Wiki "info" at face value and are disseminating these peoples' opinions to the masses as fact. The site can't die too quickly in my opinion.

It happened again. What I had put was:

The film documents the 25-year history of Eric Bana's first car, a 1974 Ford XB Falcon Hardtop that he purchased at the age of fifteen for AU $1100. In this film, Eric explores the central role that fixing and racing this car has played in his life and the lives of his friends[1]. He describes it as as being, "like a campfire for me and my mates"[2]. Celebrities Jay Leno, Dr. Phil and Jeremy Clarkson offer opinions on the emotional attachments that some people form with automobiles[3] Bana is a motor racing enthusiast, and participates in various motor racing competitions in Australia. [1] The film was released on 12 March 2009 in Australia, on 16 Nov 2009 in the UK and on 15 April 2010 in the U.S..

and they reverted it back to

The film documents the 25-year history of Eric Bana's first car, a 1974 Ford XB Falcon Hardtop. Bana purchased the car at the age of fifteen for AU $1100. Bana is a motor racing enthusiast, and participates in various motor racing competitions in Australia. [1] The film was released on 12 March 2009 in Australia, on 16 Nov 2009 in the UK and on 15 April 2010 in the U.S..

There was another boilerplate message complaining about the fact that I linked to the trailer for the movie.

Your edit here to Love the Beast was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKpX5phKTZE) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. If the external link you inserted or changed was to a media file (e.g. a sound or video file) on an external server, then note that linking to such files may be subject to Wikipedia's copyright policy, as well as other parts of our external links guideline. If the information you linked to is indeed in violation of copyright, then such information should not be linked to. Please consider using our upload facility to upload a suitable media file, or consider linking to the original.

this is beyond boneheaded. The quote that I wanted to provide a reference to is in the trailer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clique

As much of a pain in the butt as this seems like, I have zero envy for the people who moderate Wikipedia. I should imagine that the tenacity of those that would seek to harm Wikipedia demands some rather draconian policies. It's got to be a thin line between order and entries like "In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in four ships named 'dick,' 'balls,' 'your mom' and 'Chewbacca.'"

jg

I agree that Wiki needs to go.. sadly it has intertwined itself deeply into the internet and psychii of this nation too tightly

Short version: They appear to be leaving my edits in this time. As near as I can tell, this had nothing to do with how "constructive" my input was; they just wanted things done in a pretty (i.e. XML) manner

Long version: I changed the way the references are done. I originally was doing them like this:

[ http://whatever_you_are_linking_to.com ]

...which used to be an OK way to do it. Now they want you to do it like this:

< ref >{{cite web|accessdate=September 4, 2011|url=http://www.whatever_you_are_linking_to.com |title=Name of reference to display in bibliography|publisher=who published the thing you are referring to}}< /ref >

Jay wrote: If I were a professor, and a student handed me a paper that cited Wikipedia anywhere, I would reject it and make him/her rewrite.

I have used Wikipedia while writing argumentative and research papers. How? I look at the citations listed and start from there. Searching for very specific information among millions of journal entries can be a daunting task; Wikipedia can provide a starting point for finding quality information. As a collection of citations, Wikipedia is quite effective.

MitchellC wrote: I have used Wikipedia while writing argumentative and research papers. How? I look at the citations listed and start from there. Searching for very specific information among millions of journal entries can be a daunting task; Wikipedia can provide a starting point for finding quality information. As a collection of citations, Wikipedia is quite effective.

Correct answer. Use Wikipedia as a starting point, and then check their sources. I don't have a problem with it all, as long as people use it properly.

I didn't have a problem with them until I started contributing...now I realize that a lot of useful info gets thrown out because of style, length, etc.

mad_machine wrote: I agree that Wiki needs to go.. sadly it has intertwined itself deeply into the internet and psychii of this nation too tightly

there is nothing wrong with wikipedia. its a brilliant 'social project.'

The problem arises when its given more relevance than that.

Kinda like the various *chan boards. its all fun and games til someone goes "u mad?"

To all the people who complain that Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a source:

Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica

It's not infallible. No source is. That's why you use MULTIPLE sources. Wikipedia's generally as good as any other biased, incomplete source (as all are in some way).

I think wikipedia's great if only for the fact that it contains far more information than any printed encyclopedia could, and is freely accessible to essentially anyone who wants the information. Compared to the world even 15 years ago that's a major advancement.

Josh wrote: To all the people who complain that Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a source: Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica It's not infallible. No source is. That's why you use MULTIPLE sources. Wikipedia's generally as good as any other biased, incomplete source (as all are in some way). I think wikipedia's great if only for the fact that it contains far more information than any printed encyclopedia could, and is freely accessible to essentially anyone who wants the information. Compared to the world even 15 years ago that's a major advancement.

If I were any kind of teacher in any grade middle school or above, I wouldn't let students cite any encyclopedia.

The wiki breakup song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxWhzJWJ4U

Brett_Murphy wrote: The wiki breakup song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxWhzJWJ4U

wonderful

I had a History of Technology class and the professor stipulated that we use Wikipedia as the main source for a paper. I think Wikipedia is a great place to get the general overview of a topic and build from there, especially if it is a well studied and high traffic with lots of information. Only all the small, strange, and obscure pages actually have issues.

Also it allows for hilarious, spur of the moment edits from Justin Bieber fans when he loses the Grammy for best new artist.

madmallard wrote: there is nothing wrong with wikipedia. its a brilliant 'social project.' The problem arises when its given more relevance than that. Kinda like the various *chan boards. its all fun and games til someone goes "u mad?"

I have never had any luck editing Wikipedia. It is the domain of a bunch of pretentious A-holes, not public domain.

mtn wrote: If I were any kind of teacher in any grade middle school or above, I wouldn't let students cite any encyclopedia.

why? when i was in school the encyclopedia was the ONLY source available.